Kate Hoffmann - His Forbidden Conquest - A Moment on the Lips / The Best Mistake of Her Life / Not Just Friends

‘Kiss it better?’ she asked, her eyes huge and vulnerable and pleading.

This was a bad idea. He needed to stop this, right now. But his body wasn’t listening to his head. ‘Yes.’

Dante’s mouth was warm and sweet and soothing; it felt like balm to her soul. As if he was trying to kiss the pain away.

She took his hand and led him to her bedroom.

His black cashmere sweater so soft under her fingertips, but better still was his skin when she’d peeled the sweater over his head. ‘You’re gorgeous,’ she said, stroking his pectoral muscles. There was a light dusting of hair on his chest; she loved the friction against her fingertips.

‘So are you.’ He peeled off her strappy top and traced the lacy edge of her bra.

Her hand was shaking as she reached for the zip of his jeans; he gave a sharp intake of breath as she eased the denim over his thighs.

It took him seconds to dispose of the rest of her clothes; then he carried her over to the bed, pushed the duvet aside and laid her against the pillows before climbing in next to her.

‘You’re such a princess,’ he said, smiling as he sprawled on the mattress.

She knew exactly what he was talking about. ‘Sheets with a high thread count are comfortable. What’s so bad about that?’

‘I knew your bed would be like this. Well, actually, no. I thought you’d have hundreds of cushions and this’d be a four-poster covered in voile.’

‘Silk ribbons.’ She curved her thumb and forefinger round his wrist.

‘Is that what you’re thinking, Princess?’ He licked his lower lip and gave her a smouldering look that turned her to mush. ‘I think I like how your mind works.’

She laughed. ‘If I was still in the art business, I’d so commission a painting of you.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘What kind of painting might that be?’

‘Naked. And for my eyes only,’ she said.

‘Good, because I think my mother would have a fit if there were naked paintings of me on display all over Naples—not to mention what your grandparents would say.’

‘Well, the décor in Tonielli’s does need a bit of updating,’ she teased.

‘Not with naked pictures of me, it doesn’t.’

‘It’d draw in a lot of female customers.’

‘If that’s on your business plan, I’m red-penning it already.’

‘No. This is separate. Just you and me.’

The vulnerable, needy girl had gone, replaced by a sparky, funny woman he liked a lot. And making love with her was pure pleasure. Particularly when she insisted on taking the lead and straddled him.

‘I like this. Great view,’ he said, reaching up to play with her breasts.

‘And I’m in charge.’

Only because he was letting her—and the expression in her eyes told him she knew it, too. But he was enjoying indulging her. He loved it when she lowered herself over him and began to move. And he seriously adored it when she kissed him hard, demanding a response and getting it.

Once he’d dealt with the condom and come back to her bedroom, he pulled his clothes on again.

‘Don’t tell me you’re planning to go back to work now?’

He shrugged. ‘You know me. Dull, boring businessman.’

She sighed. ‘Dante, don’t you ever give yourself a break?’

He didn’t even need to think about it. ‘No. Stay there; I’ll see myself out. Your homework this week is a SWOT analysis. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. The idea is to turn weaknesses into strengths—’

‘—and threats into opportunities. Got it,’ she finished dryly.

‘Good. See you Saturday. My office, seven thirty. Ciao. ’

And he walked out of her bedroom.

Before he could give in to the temptation of her unspoken offer to stay.

ON THE Monday afternoon, Carenza came back to her office with a pile of notes following a trip to a competitor’s gelateria , to discover a book smack in the middle of her desk, with a note stuck to it. More homework: analyse your sales for the last five years. What are the trends and why? Split it by outlet. Dante. His handwriting was bold and spiky and confident, like the man himself. And she was so disappointed to realise that she’d missed him.

Ha. How pathetic was she? For all she knew, he could’ve sent the book over by courier.

She emailed him swiftly.

Thank you for the book. All homework in progress.

Though first she needed to get the sales figures. Broken down by outlet.

That was when she discovered that her grandfather didn’t have everything on a computer spreadsheet, the way Amy always had at the gallery. Everything was in paper format only. Which left her with no choice; she was going to have to talk to Emilio Mancuso and ask him for the information.

He frowned when she called in to see him and made her request. ‘Why do you want to see the last five years’ figures?’

‘So I can see the trends.’

He shrugged. ‘There’s no need. I’ve looked after things for your grandfather for the last five years.’ He paused, and gave her a significant look. ‘Since he had his heart problems.’

Heart problems? What heart problems? Why didn’t she know anything about this? Though the last thing she wanted was for Mancuso to think that she’d been kept in the dark, so she kept her worries under wraps. She’d talk to her grandmother about this later.

‘I know sales have been down, but there’s really nothing to worry about. It’s just the recession, and everyone’s in the same boat.’ He gave her a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘You don’t need to worry your pretty little head about it, carissima .’

Darling? She wasn’t his darling. And he’d just used the phrase that always made her see red. Her pretty little head, indeed. Why wouldn’t men take her seriously? Was she going to have to dress in frumpy clothes, stop wearing make-up, dye her hair mouse-brown and scrape it back into a bun, and don a pair of thick glasses before anyone would notice that she did actually have a brain?

And why wouldn’t he just give her the figures and let her see them for herself? ‘Nonno’s put me in charge, and I can’t do my job unless I have all the facts,’ she said, more rudely than she’d intended, but his attitude infuriated her. ‘I can see you’re busy, Signor Mancuso, and I’d hate to disturb you unnecessarily. Just tell me where the paperwork is and I’ll find it for myself.’

He went a dull red. ‘I already told you. You don’t need to do this.’

Another refusal. Did he have something to hide? She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘If it’s a problem for you, I could always ask Nonno.’ And she had some other questions to ask her grandparents, too. Such as why they hadn’t breathed a word about her grandfather’s heart problems.

Tight-lipped, he took her through to a dusty-looking office, rummaged on a shelf and handed her several books.

‘I hope you don’t mind me taking these back to my own office.’ Before he had a chance to say he did mind, she added, ‘Of course, I’ll take great care of them. And I’ll return them personally when I’ve finished.’ And she called a taxi to take her back to her office; no way was she going to ask him to help her get the books back to her place.

But when she looked closely at the figures, it seemed to be just as Mancuso said: sales were simply dropping, year on year. Maybe her instinctive dislike of him had been wrong. Maybe he had nothing to hide after all, and he was just fed up because Nonno had handed the reins over to her instead of letting him continue to run the business.

Though surely he realised that, if Nonno had sold the business, Dante Romano would’ve brought his own management team in—maybe even taken over the reins himself, at first? So this was pretty much the same thing.