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He said something in Italian which Angie didn’t understand, but she didn’t need to be a linguist to comprehend its crude meaning.
‘All you we
re thinking about was your own damned pleasure!’ he finished witheringly, and saw her flinch.
‘Actually, I was going to tell you—only you slipped from my bed in the night, like a thief!’ she retorted. ‘But now when I stop to think about it—what good could you have done, Riccardo? Because when a girl like Floriana is in some kind of turmoil, why try to involve someone like you—who has the emotional capacity of a gnat?’
His fists clenched. ‘How dare you speak to me in this manner?’ he hissed.
‘And don’t you dare pull rank on me at a time like this!’ she stormed back. ‘Either Floriana is old enough to be married, or she isn’t. And if she is—then she has to learn to stand on her own two feet and not take advice from her two brothers who are treating her like some kind of puppet simply because they like to control the world and the people in it!’
Riccardo’s nostrils flared in aristocratic disdain. ‘That is enough,’ he grated. ‘You know nothing of these matters, Angie—you are a member of my staff who is here as my guest.’
‘Not any more, I’m not. I resign as of now!’
His black eyes were cold. ‘You’d better get your stuff packed and I’ll have someone drive you to the airport. The place is in chaos and there’s no point in you staying.’
Angie swallowed down the great lump which had lodged itself in her throat. ‘I’ll have my desk cleared by the time you get back to London.’
At this, he stilled—and pushed his face a little closer to hers, noting with some masochistic kind of satisfaction that her eyes automatically darkened. ‘Spare me the melodrama, cara. You will clear your desk when I tell you to,’ he bit out.
‘But you said…’ Her breathing coming in short, painful puffs of air, she stared at him. ‘You said I could leave straight away with six months pay if I came out to Tuscany with you,’ she whispered.
‘Did I? Well, in view of your behaviour—I’ve changed my mind.’ He gave a grim kind of smile. ‘Such a verbal agreement between two lovers simply boils down to your word against mine. Next time I’d get something down in writing, if I were you.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ALL the way during her miserable flight home to London, Angie told herself that she didn’t care. That Riccardo wouldn’t dare blackmail her into staying under what would now be intolerable working conditions. That he didn’t have a leg to stand on.
But it didn’t work out like that.
She spoke to a lawyer—a friend-of-a-friend told her that her boss was completely within his rights. For one brief second Angie contemplated opening her mouth to ask whether the fact that they’d been lovers might have any bearing on the case, then quickly shut it again. Because that made her sound at best unprofessional, and at worst…Well, it made her sound completely lacking in morals. As if she were one of those awful women in the workplace who tried to further their career by less than scrupulous means.
But she was worried about Floriana, too—and now wondering whether she’d done the wrong thing. If she’d told Riccardo late that night, then could her disappearance have been prevented?
She was shivering as she caught the Tube into work, full of a cold which seemed to have hit her the moment she’d landed back in England. And full of dread too, because yesterday she had received a matter-of-fact email from Riccardo telling her that he was back from Italy and would be returning to the office this morning, prior to flying out to New York at the end of the week.
Angie bit her lip. With a bit of luck, he might be abroad most of the time she was working out her notice—and with a bit more luck, she might find a decent job to go to in the interim. She’d actually managed to arrange a couple of interviews for the following week.
She was banking on him strolling in at around ten, but fate was clearly conspiring against her because he entered the building at exactly the same time as her and, bizarrely, they met in the middle of the vast marble foyer, staring at one another like two strangers.
‘Hello, Angie,’ he said, in a cool kind of voice.
The last time she’d seen him he had been yelling at her—so was the fact that this was a very public meeting place the reason why at least he sounded civil? She matched his tone with a cool, non-committal one of her own. ‘Good—good morning.’
She was forced to share the lift with him and the presence of two women from the accounts department thankfully ruled out any attempt at conversation. But the silence pressed down on her like a lead weight and Angie could feel tiny beads of sweat springing from her forehead as she tried to look somewhere—anywhere—other than at that hard and handsome face, which still had the power to make her heart melt.
Riccardo let his eyes drift over her. She was pale, he thought, and she looked as if she’d lost weight—was that possible in a matter of days? His mouth hardened. So she’d lost weight—why should he care? Hadn’t her stubbornness helped complicate an already complicated family situation?
The lift doors slid open and he stood back to let her pass—aware of the faint, light scent she wore and the gleam of her hair as she moved. He followed her into the office, unable to keep his eyes from the sexy sway of her bottom—even though he had told himself countless times during the last few days that the affair was over, and that he would arrive back in London and wonder what the hell he’d ever seen in her.
So what had gone wrong?
Why did he find himself wanting to pull her into his arms again and seek comfort and passion in those soft, seeking lips of hers? He wasn’t quite sure—and, for a man to whom uncertainty was a stranger, Riccardo felt oddly unnerved by the sensation.
After she’d hung her coat up and blown her nose for what seemed like the hundredth time, Angie looked at him. ‘How’s Floriana?’
There was a pause as he looked at her, seeing the concern in her eyes and the faint tremble of her lips.
