Mills & Boon Stars Collection: Sinful Proposals. Cathy Williams

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СКАЧАТЬ of her mother were scattered but she remembered enough. She remembered how pretty her mother had been and how helpless she had been at the hands of men who had taken advantage of her. The roller-coaster ride that had been her childhood had built in her a capacity for self-control she never relinquished and a determination never to find herself in any situation with anyone that made her feel helpless. John had never made her feel helpless.

      But something about Stefano Gunn made her feel helpless.

      ‘Sit.’

      Sunny folded her arms and stared at him. ‘We’re not in an office now, Mr Gunn...’

      ‘Stefano, please.’

      She chose to ignore that interruption. ‘So I feel it’s okay for me to be direct with you.’

      ‘I’ve always encouraged directness in other people,’ Stefano murmured. She was even more eye-catching than he remembered, even though the hair, he noted, was still tucked away and she wore no make-up.

      She’d turned down his offer for dinner and rejected what he had to say without bothering to give him a hearing. She’d been pointedly polite about it but she hadn’t been able to get away from him fast enough.

      He was accustomed to women bending over backwards to attract his attention. He’d never been in the position of being with a woman who so clearly couldn’t wait to escape his presence and he hadn’t known whether to be irritated or amused by that.

      ‘I don’t know how you managed to find out where I work...’

      ‘Not that difficult. I got your address from Katherine, went to your house, spoke to the girl who shares your flat with you, who told me where you worked and here I am.’

      ‘You spoke to Katherine?’ Sunny was outraged. She glanced round to see Claire looking at her curiously. ‘I have to finish clearing the tables,’ she muttered.

      ‘I’ll wait until you’re finished and walk you home.’

      ‘I don’t need an escort, Mr Gunn.’

      ‘I told you, the name is Stefano.’ An edge of impatience had crept into his voice. Her simmering hostility and mutinous stubbornness, rather than putting him off, was goading him into digging his heels in. He’d come here to talk to her and talk to her he would. Maybe if it hadn’t been for Flora, he would have shrugged off her cool refusal to listen to him although a little voice in his head was telling him that she posed a challenge and a challenge was something he had not experienced in a very long time.

      Sunny didn’t bother to answer. She knew she was attracting interested looks from her friends in the restaurant and that in itself made her bristle with annoyance at him.

      How dared he track her down like this?

      How dared he think that he could stampede over her very clear refusal to listen to his proposition?

      How dared he think he could try and sweet-talk her into bed because he was filthy rich and she was just an ordinary junior in a law firm and therefore open to persuasion?

      And how dared he compromise her position in the company by talking to her boss about her?

      Rage bubbled up inside her as she raced through the remainder of her chores, wiping the tables and then, finally, changing back into her jeans and T-shirt and the denim jacket she had brought along because it was now quite cool outside.

      ‘He’s still there, you know,’ Claire said, lounging by the kitchen door with a tea towel slung over her shoulder. She and Tom would stay on for at least another hour and in the morning they would count the takings. It had been a very good night. ‘I know you’ve made a point of pretending not to notice, but he hasn’t gone.’

      Sunny flushed and scowled.

      ‘My darling, none of us can miss the way the guys who come in here stare at you. I don’t mean to intrude... I know you’re a very private person, but haven’t you ever been tempted to...to...?’

      ‘Never,’ Sunny said fiercely. ‘I don’t go for guys who are drawn to me because of the way I look.’ She remembered her foster father’s lecherous eyes following her through the house, while his invalid wife remained cheerfully oblivious, and shuddered.

      ‘Who’s your latest admirer?’

      Sunny sighed and looked at Claire. ‘He’s not an admirer,’ she admitted. Although why else would he be here? If not to try and get her into bed? She wasn’t vain but she was realistic and being realistic protected her against having her head turned by meaningless, pretty words. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll get rid of him and I’ll make sure he doesn’t come here again.’

      Claire laughed. ‘He looks rich. He can come whenever he wants, just as long as he puts his hand in his pocket and actually shows up in time to order food and drink!’

      ‘I’ll pass that on.’ Sunny smiled weakly. She had no intention of doing any such thing. What she intended to do was find out just what he had said to Katherine and whether he had compromised her position in the company.

      And she would have to do that without letting her temper explode. She would have to be cool, calm and collected whilst leaving him in no doubt that she wasn’t interested in whatever he had to say to her.

      She emerged and Stefano was almost surprised because he had half expected her to have disappeared through a back door. But there she was, in jeans and a T-shirt and, without the cap, her hair was long. Very long. Every shade of blonde feathering in curls down her back, although that didn’t last very long because, even as she walked towards him, she was stuffing it into a ponytail.

      She had the long, slender body of a ballet dancer and her movements were graceful. She was scowling, but not even the scowl could hide that startling, unusual prettiness. When she had been created, some small added ingredient had been thrown into the mix, elevating her from good-looking to unbelievably striking. Her green eyes were narrowed suspiciously on him as she finally came to a stop directly in front of him.

      ‘I want to know what you said to Katherine.’

      ‘You’re not, are you?’ Stefano stood up, towering over her, and she automatically fell back a step or two.

      ‘Not what?’

      ‘Sunny.’ He shoved his hands in his pockets as they headed to the door. ‘Your mother must rue the day she named you that. Unless, of course...’ he pushed open the restaurant door, allowing her to brush past him ‘...you’re sunny with everyone else but reserve all your bulldog belligerence for me...is that it? And, if so, why?’

      ‘My mother died when I was a child,’ Sunny said coldly. ‘What did you tell Katherine?’ She didn’t want him walking next to her...didn’t want him escorting her the short distance to her flat, but she felt as if she had no choice.

      ‘I told her that I wanted to discuss something with you of a personal nature and she was kind enough to provide me with your address.’

      ‘How dare you?’ She rounded on him, hands on her hips, so furious that she felt she might explode. ‘Do you have any idea how important that job is to me?’ A series of scenarios ran through her head, each worse than the one before. He had put poor Katherine in a position...he was so important that she СКАЧАТЬ