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‘Yes.’ She cut him off. ‘It was to regulate my periods, if you must know.’ Except she had, in the welter of her own emotions, forgotten to taken it that morning. And now that she thought about it, with the news of the takeover, she hadn’t taken one yesterday either. It had hardly seemed important, considering her lack of a sex life, and yet now…
Mia swallowed hard. Surely skipping just two didn’t matter so much? She’d take one later today, in any case. The amount of risk wasn’t worth telling Alessandro about. She could not possibly handle his reaction to a potential pregnancy right now. She couldn’t get her head around it herself.
‘Fine,’ Alessandro said. ‘It’s good to know a pregnancy will not be a concern.’
A pregnancy.
No, she really could not handle thinking about that now. And it was surely so very unlikely. ‘No, it is not a concern,’ she managed.
‘And you do not need to worry about any possible disease,’ Alessandro continued steadily, starkly. Something else Mia hadn’t even considered, not remotely, although if she’d been thinking straight, she surely would have.
‘That’s good to know. Thank you.’
They stared at each other, the tension in the room ratcheting up with every second until it felt unbearable. ‘Then there’s nothing more to say,’ Mia said finally, desperate to have this over, to move beyond this moment, and more importantly, beyond last night’s moment. ‘So, as far as both of us are concerned, last night didn’t happen. We can move on as if it didn’t. We need to, for the sake of…everything.’ She drew herself up, determined to do just that. ‘Is there anything you need from me today?’
Alessandro stared at her for a long, hard moment, a muscle ticking in his jaw. ‘I’m going to write a letter to all of Dillard’s clients,’ he said at last. ‘You can take it down and then show me a draft copy.’
Mia’s heart tumbled in her chest as she felt a weird mix of relief and disappointment that she didn’t want to understand. Alessandro was doing what she wanted…trying to act normal. ‘Very good,’ she said, and turned from the room to get her laptop.
A few minutes later Alessandro was sitting behind his desk and Mia was in front of it, the laptop opened on her knees, her fingers poised on the keyboard, as professional a look as she could manage on her face. This was going to work. She was going to make this work.
She was not going to think about how Alessandro had felt or smelled or tasted, how she’d come apart in his arms and was still desperately trying to put herself together. She wasn’t. She absolutely wasn’t.
And yet the memories still bombarded her as Alessandro began dictating the letter. It took all her mental power, all her energy and willpower, to focus on the words forming on the screen in front of her instead of what had happened between them last night.
It will get better, Mia told herself. The memory will fade.
This was going to work.
This wasn’t working.
Alessandro couldn’t keep from the glaringly obvious fact as he dictated his letter to Mia. Twice he had to start over, correcting himself, because he was hopelessly distracted by the sight of her, looking as prim and proper as you please, yet still, amazingly, seeming sexy to him.
That tight topknot made him long to pluck the pins from it and run his fingers through the spill of straight, wheat-gold hair. The crisp grey blouse with the mother-of-pearl buttons seemed to be begging to be undone, button by tiny button. The crisp navy suit would look far better crumpled on the floor.
‘Mr Costa?’ Her voice, crisp and precise, broke into his scattered thoughts. ‘You were saying…?’
‘I think, considering the circumstances, you should call me Alessandro.’
Something sparked in her eyes. ‘I do not wish to consider the circumstances, and I didn’t think you did, either.’
‘I meant,’ Alessandro clarified, ‘as your employer.’ But he hadn’t been thinking of her as his employee. Not at all.
A faint pink touched Mia’s cheeks, making her look all the more delectable. Making him want her all the more. ‘Of course,’ she murmured, and turned towards back to her laptop, her gaze focused determinedly on the screen.
Alessandro went back to dictating the letter, but again he lost his train of thought, which infuriated him. This was not who he was. This was not who he could be.
‘Mr… Alessandro?’ Mia prompted. Again. Her eyebrows were raised, her eyes so very blue.
‘Type up what you have,’ Alessandro said abruptly. ‘And I’ll look at it then. Thank you.’
Wordlessly Mia nodded, rising from her seat in one elegantly fluid movement. Alessandro couldn’t keep from watching her as she left the room, noting her long, slim legs in sheer tights, the low navy pumps. As far as he was concerned, she could have been wearing a negligee and stiletto heels. Her staid, puritanical outfit still enflamed him, and that was most definitely a problem.
The door clicked shut softly behind her, and Alessandro swivelled in his chair, too restless to get back to his work, although he certainly had plenty to do. He needed to weed through Dillard’s clients and decided which ones were worth keeping. He needed to woo the clients he wanted to stay on and make sure that they did. And he needed to find positions for the employees he intended on keeping, and offer redundancy packages to the ones he didn’t.
Which made him think of Mia. He’d intended on keeping her in the office for at least another week, to help smooth the transition period, but that thought felt like torture now. He could at least check on the details for her eventual transfer, to make sure it happened as easily and quickly as possible.
He was always generous with his offers, and so he would be with Mia. It made the most sense. It filled him with relief, that he could be proactive about arranging her inevitable transfer. All it would take were a few phone calls.
