Lynne Graham - The Italian Billionaire's Pregnant Bride

‘It’s misconduct, sir,’ Renzo told him eagerly.

‘You think so?’ Sergio got up from his desk, taking the portable phone with him as he strolled out to take a look at the chessboard. Evidently she had abandoned caution and made another move directly after leaving his office. Why? No doubt she was keen to help him to speedily unveil her identity and take the bait. Illicit napping on the job aside, the humble toil of cleaning duties had to be a serious challenge for a woman only doing it in an effort to cross his path.

‘She’ll be disciplined, probably sacked by the contract company when we lodge a complaint—’

‘No. Leave this matter with me and be discreet about it,’ Sergio interposed softly. ‘I’ll handle it.’

‘You’ll handle it, sir?’ his security chief repeated in audible astonishment. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course. I also want that surveillance camera put out of commission right now.’ Sergio tossed the phone down. His astute dark eyes were shot through with derisive gold. So she wasn’t a genuine hard-working salt-of-the-earth cleaner worthy of his respect. Why had he been willing to believe she was for even five minutes? Put that glorious face and body in tandem with the creative chess game aimed at attracting his attention and he had yet another gold-digger in hot and original pursuit.

Open season for the hunt, Sergio mused with sardonic amusement. He was a hell of a good shot and he intended to have some fun. And sooner rather than later, because he was leaving London the next day to compete in a cross-country skiing marathon in Norway. After that he had business to attend to in New York. It would be ten days before he was back in the UK.

Rising to his full imposing height of six feet three inches, Sergio strode out of the office and down the corridor in search of his quarry. He found her dusting a desk. Her fabulous hair glittered in multi-shaded splendour below the ceiling lights. When she straightened and saw him in the doorway, an expression of surprise grew on her delicate features. Grudging amusement assailed Sergio: she knew how to stay in role all right. Looking at that frowning air of enquiry, nobody would have dreamt that she had been teasing and tantalising him with a game that he considered very much his own for almost three weeks.

‘Let’s play chess in the real world, bella mia,’ Sergio suggested with silken cool. ‘I challenge you to finish the game tonight. If you win, you get me. If you lose, you still get me. How can you lose?’

KATHY stared at Sergio Torrente for a good ten seconds. Her every expectation was shattered by that challenge coming at her out of the blue, and from such a source as the powerfully built male confronting her. For a long time now, she had protected herself by never taking a risk and never stepping out of line to be noticed. Sudden unexpected attention from a stranger and the belated realisation that she had foolishly invited it unnerved her.

Yet she was mortifyingly aware that it was his bold, dark masculine beauty that claimed her attention first. Win or lose, he was on offer? Was he serious? If he was, would she dare to take him up on it? While she’d worked she had told herself that he could not have been half as attractive as she had thought he was. Now here he was again in the flesh to blow that staid and sensible belief right out of the water. Just looking at the proud, chiselled planes of his darkly handsome features gave her the strangest sense of pleasure. A frisson of dangerous exhilaration gripped her while butterflies fluttered in her stomach. She parted her lips without even knowing what she intended to say. ‘I—er—’

Glittering black eyes centred on her with laser beam intensity. ‘Backing down from a face-to-face contest?’ he murmured with unconcealed scorn.

Anger shot through Kathy with a power and sharpness that she had forgotten she could feel and she lifted her chin in answer. ‘Are you kidding?’

Sergio stepped back to allow her to precede him from the room. ‘Then let’s go and play.’

‘But I’m working,’ Kathy pointed out with a slow bemused shake of her head. ‘For goodness’ sake, who are you?’

A mocking ebony brow quirked. ‘Is that a serious question?’

‘Why wouldn’t it be?’

‘I am Sergio Torrente and I own the Torrenco Group,’ Sergio delivered drily, wondering whether she thought it was clever to make what he considered to be an outrageous claim of ignorance. ‘Every company in this block belongs to me. I find it hard to believe that you’re not aware of those facts.’

Kathy was paralysed to the spot by that revelation. It had not even occurred to her that he might be that important. But, even so, she had never heard of him before. She had never been on any floor other than the one she was on now and she had had no interest whatsoever in the business world or the personalities that powered the huge building during the hours of daylight.

‘So will you play?’ Sergio prompted with impatience.

An adrenalin rush was firing self-preservation skills in Kathy. It was clear to her that she had picked the wrong chessboard to get familiar with and the wrong guy. Why had she not even suspected that he might be her opponent? His smooth urbane façade had deceived her, she conceded tautly. He radiated an aura of sophisticated ease and cool. But the breathtaking elegance of his designer suit concealed a purebred predator, for he was a highly aggressive and clever player who took advantage of every tactical opportunity to attack. In short, he was very much an Alpha male incapable of ignoring any perceived challenge to prove his strength. Not a guy to tangle with, not a guy to offend.

‘I could take my break now,’ Kathy told him, ready to get her punishment over with, as instead of beating him in two moves as she had previously planned she decided that it would be wiser to let him win.

Sergio nodded, hooded dark golden eyes nailed to her because he had yet to work out what script she was trying to follow. Was he really supposed to credit that she didn’t know who he was?

‘I’ve had the board moved into my office so that we can play undisturbed.’

Her heart was now beating very fast with nervous tension. He thrust open the door of his office, then stood back. Momentarily she was close enough to catch the faint evocative scent of some expensive male cologne. She snatched in a charged breath. ‘How did you know it was me? How did you find out?’

‘That’s not important.’

‘It’s important to me,’ she dared.

‘Surveillance camera,’ he supplied.

Kathy lost colour. There was a security camera in that hallway? She was appalled by that news. She took her breaks there and, once or twice, when she had been very tired, she had set the alarm on her watch and taken a nap on that sofa. Proof of those facts would be sufficient to put her out of a job.

‘Would you like a drink?’

Her slender figure now tense as a bowstring, Kathy hovered in the centre of the carpet. A pool of light shone across the board and the sofas in one corner. It was a very intimate backdrop. If the supervisor came looking for her and found her in such a situation she would get totally the wrong idea and alcohol was a sackable offence. ‘Are you trying to get me fired?’

‘If you don’t talk, I won’t,’ Sergio countered with lazy indifference.

An automatic negative was on Kathy’s lips, but suddenly a spirit of rebellion sparked inside her. With the proof he already had of her stealing a nap during her break, there was little point splitting hairs. ‘You’re only young once,’ Bridget had scolded that same day. But Kathy had never really known what it was to be young and carefree. Since she had regained her freedom she had followed every rule she met everywhere to the letter, no matter how small the rule, no matter how petty. The habit had become engrained in her, the new secure framework by which she lived. The chess game had been the only deviation and only because she couldn’t resist the temptation of reliving the challenges her late father had once set her. In truth she could not even recall when she had last tasted alcohol and that made her feel pathetic, sad and defiant. She named a fashionable drink that she had seen advertised on a billboard.