Sharon Kendrick - Priceless

‘It’s that one on the end,’ said Jessica, glad that the journey had passed without anything going wrong. But she also felt strangely reluctant to leave the sumptuous cosiness in exchange for the cold reality outside. ‘Just here.’

‘You own this, do you?’ questioned Salvatore as the car came to a halt in front of a small house.

Jessica turned to him. Was he crazy? No, he was just rich and the rich were different—everyone knew that. It wasn’t his fault that he had no comprehension of how people like her lived their lives. She shook her head. ‘Property’s hugely expensive in London. I rent—in fact, I share this house with two other girls. Willow works in the fashion business and Freya is an air stewardess—though she’s away a lot.’

But Salvatore wasn’t really listening. Maybe it was because the rain had finally stopped. Or maybe it was because the moon had appeared from behind the dark curtain of a cloud. It was amazing what a little light could do.

He found himself looking down at her face, at skin which looked impossibly pure and clean. Her grey eyes were illuminated by that same light and so was the subtle gleam of her mouth. Unexpectedly, she looked all eyes and lips and her pauper-like appearance suddenly crumbled to dust in his memory.

‘Are you busy tomorrow night?’ he questioned suddenly.

Jessica blinked. ‘No. Why?’

‘How would you like to accompany me to that dinner I was telling you about?’

‘You mean, as your guest ?’ she queried, her voice quivering on the brink of astonishment.

What did she imagine he wanted—that he was taking his own personal cleaner? But at least with Jessica, Salvatore knew that he could be upfront. A girl like her was unlikely to read anything into the situation, but he’d better make it clear.

‘Yes, of course,’ he said impatiently. ‘But what I really want is for you to act like my girlfriend—’

‘Your girlfriend ?’ she interrupted, even though everyone knew you should never interrupt your boss but this was so bizarre that the normal rules had gone flying out of the window.

‘It’s just a little role play,’ he murmured. ‘Nothing too demanding. Gaze into my eyes a little. Look at me adoringly once in a while. Think you could manage that without too much trouble?’ His eyes mocked her with the question because Salvatore knew that there wasn’t a woman alive who would find that an impossible task. ‘Get the predators off my back once and for all, and let them know that if I want a woman, then I’ll do the choosing myself.’

‘But there must be a million women you could ask!’ exclaimed Jessica.

‘Oh, at least a million,’ he answered, with cool and mocking humour. ‘But none of them suitable for all kinds of reasons.’ The main one being that they saw him as husband-material, something which this little thing would never be guilty of.

‘But won’t …?’ Jessica bit her lip. Wasn’t it more than a bit humiliating to have to ask the next question? But ask it she needed to. ‘Won’t it be slightly unbelievable … someone like me going out with someone like you?’

‘Possibly,’ Salvatore conceded, his eye flicking disparagingly over her bulky waterproof. ‘If you were dressed like that it might be very difficult indeed.’

‘Oddly enough, it didn’t occur to me to put on my best party dress for work,’ she said, hurt.

‘You mean you might have something suitable tucked away?’

For a moment she felt like saying no, she didn’t, because surely that would get her off the hook? But somehow she didn’t think that Salvatore would let it rest now that he’d made up his mind about this strange assignment. If she said that she didn’t have anything to wear, then mightn’t that look as if she was angling to be given something? Just because she cleaned his office didn’t mean that she couldn’t scrub up well!

And besides, there was an undeniable part of her which was thrilled at the thought of accompanying Salvatore Cardini to a party. Didn’t life sometimes throw opportunities at you which would be a crime to turn down?

‘Of course I’ve something suitable to wear,’ she said proudly, and then a sudden, heady sense of her own power swept over her in a way it had never done before. ‘But I haven’t said I’ll go yet, sir.’

The preposterous statement made him smile, but it made a pulse begin to beat heavily at his temple, too. She would be very foolish indeed if she began to tease him—she was dealing with a man and not a boy. He could bend her to his will with the mere whisper of his fingertip.

Fractionally, he leaned forward, his face closer, his voice soft. ‘But I think you will, won’t you, Jessica? And while we’re at it, I think you should lose the “sir”, don’t you? In the circumstances it might be a bit of a giveaway.’

He was so close that she could see the moonlight glinting in his sapphire eyes and sense his animal warmth, the tangy scent of soap and raw masculinity. This close he was … Jessica felt her heart give an irregular skip. He was irresistible.

Was she playing with fire?

‘Yes, I’ll come,’ she said, and then stumbled out of the car before either of them could change their minds.

‘YOU’RE going where tomorrow night?’ demanded Willow in a voice of sheer disbelief.

‘Out to dinner,’ said Jessica faintly as she took off her bulky jacket. The limousine had just driven away and it was almost as if she needed to repeat the words to herself to believe that they were true. ‘With Salvatore Cardini.’

Willow’s eyes widened. ‘That’s the Salvatore Cardini? The Italian billionaire playboy who owns that company where you play Mrs Mop in the evenings?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Let’s make sure we’re talking about the same man here, Jessica. Black-haired, blue-eyed, sex-on-legs but with a mean, dangerous look about him?’

‘Well, yes—that just about sums him up.’

Willow brushed a lock of dead-straight blonde hair out of her eye. ‘You do realise that he’s an international playboy with a reputation as a heartbreaker?’

‘I sort of guessed that for myself.’

‘And that every glossy magazine worth its salt has been trying to gain access to do a feature on him? Jessica, what are you like ?’

Jessica shook his head. ‘I didn’t know that —and I don’t care and it’s no good you looking at me that way, Willow. I know you work for one of those glossies and I know you’d love an exclusive, but you’re not getting it via me. Salvatore is my boss—one of the reasons I have that job is because I’m discreet.’

‘But it’s a rubbish job!’

‘Which means I can pay my bills here!’ Jessica retorted, thinking of the steep sum she had to shell out for the tiny boxroom of the three-bedroomed house. But then, unlike Willow and Freya, she wasn’t cushioned by the comfort of family money if her finances ran into real trouble.

‘Perhaps some time you could tell him that your friend would love to do a sympathetic interview and he could even have say on the final copy? I’d be eternally grateful.’ Willow shook her elegant head. ‘And he’s taking you out,’ she said. ‘Unbelievable!’

Jessica could understand her incredulity only too well. Her housemate lived up to her name—she was tall, blonde and stylish and legions of men were always attempting to beat their way to her door. Yet not even Willow had managed to attract a man of Salvatore’s calibre—and here was mousy little Jessica doing just that.

‘It is a bit incredible,’ she admitted.

‘So why has he done it, Jessica?’

Jessica dipped a teabag into a mug of boiling water so that her face was partially hidden. Wouldn’t it be humiliating to have to tell the whole truth—that essentially she was being taken out as some kind of deterrent to other women? Wouldn’t it be acceptable to allow herself the fantasy, just this once—especially as it was just going to be once?