The Sicilian Boss's Mistress. PENNY JORDAN

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ life inside him, hard-edged and determined to make its presence felt. He shrugged it aside. Some ancient macho instinct had been aroused by her challenge— so what? He was mature enough, sophisticated enough, well supplied enough with all the sexual companionship he needed not to have to take any notice of it.

      ‘Good. And now I shall let you know that you will never be asked. My standards in that regard, as in everything else in my life, are very high. You do not come anywhere near meeting them.’ His smile was cruel and mocking as he went on coldly, ‘I may be a second son, but I never, ever accept second best, much less third-rate. Now, since we have both made our position clear, maybe we can discuss what I shall require of you rather than what I most certainly do not?’

      He had insulted her, but he could not hurt her, Leonora assured herself as she glared dry-eyed at him. She didn’t care how third-rate he considered her to be sexually. In fact she was glad that he wasn’t interested in her.

      Alessandro pushed back the cuff of his shirt and looked at his watch. Why had he made that comment to her about his position as a second son? He didn’t have to justify or explain himself in any way to anyone, never mind this irritatingly challenging woman who was the very last person he would have chosen to accompany him to the castello had he actually had any choice.

      He could, of course, always go on his own, but that stubborn stiff pride that had driven him all his life insisted he had to prove to his elder brother that he could produce a woman who would not under any circumstances look at any other man—and that included Falcon himself. In that respect Leonora Thaxton was perfect, since he possessed the power to ensure that she would not do so.

      He gave her a mercilessly assessing look, his mouth compressing. The raw material might be there, in the tumbled hair and the well-shaped face with its clear skin, but that raw material was in need of a good deal of polishing if his elder brother was not to take one look at her and, with a lift of that famously derogatory eyebrow of his, burst out laughing.

      ‘Come,’ he announced. ‘My chauffeur’s wife will be wondering where he is, and Pietro himself will be wanting his supper. My car is this way.’

      Did he really expect her to believe that he was in the least bit concerned about his chauffeur or his chauffeur’s wife? Leonora thought indignantly, as she was forced to run to catch up with him as he strode away from her, plainly expecting her to follow him to where she could now see a large limousine waiting in the shadows.

      The chauffeur had the doors open for them as they reached the car, and Leonora’s heart sank as she realised that she was going to have to share the admittedly generously proportioned back seat of the car with Alessandro.

      As she sat down beside him on the tan leather seat he instructed her, ‘You will need to give Pietro your passport so that he can show it at the customs office at the gate.’ And then opened his laptop and ignored her, leaving her to seethe.

      She handed over her passport, which was duly presented to the customs officer, but it was into Alessandro’s outstretched hand that the chauffeur placed the returned passport once they were through the gate, not her own. Alessandro did not return it to her, despite the demanding look she gave him, choosing instead to slip it into the inside pocket of his jacket without so much as lifting his eyes from his laptop to meet her angry look.

      CHAPTER THREE

      ‘CATERINA will show you to the guest suite, and once you have refreshed yourself I will explain to you over supper the role I wish you to play. Since we shall have to leave Florence by mid-afternoon tomorrow we will not have much time, so immediately after breakfast we will address the matter of providing you with a suitable wardrobe for the weekend.’

      ‘I have a change of clothes with me,’ Leonora said, pointedly looking down at the small case which Pietro had placed on the marble-tiled floor of the elegant hallway in the two-storey apartment inside this eighteenth-century palazzo to which Alessandro had brought her.

      Alessandro followed her gaze, and then swept his eyes from the case to the full length of her body and her face, with a comprehensive thoroughness that lifted the hairs on the back of her neck.

      ‘And that change will be what? A pair of jeans and a shirt?’

      ‘What if it is?’ Leonora demanded

      ‘The events to which I wish you to accompany me have been organised by my elder brother to celebrate and commemorate the granting to our family of its titles. They are not the kind of events at which guests will appear wearing jeans, which is why I am about to organise the services of a personal shopper who will ensure that you have the correct clothes.’

      He began ticking the items off on his fingers, their lean, strong length somehow managing to distract Leonora to such an extent that she couldn’t drag her gaze away from them. They were such very male hands, she thought, leaner and longer-fingered than the broader hands of her father and her brothers, tanned and with well-groomed nails, and yet here and there she could see small telltale white scars, as though the artistic streak revealed by the elegant length of his hands had manifested itself in a creative skill, but that of master sculptor rather than a painter.

      ‘Tomorrow evening we shall be attending a cocktail party. And then on Saturday there will be an official luncheon party at the castello, with various civic guests of honour. In the evening there is to be a grand costume ball, and the celebrations are concluding with a special church service on Sunday.’

      A cocktail party, a formal lunch, a costume ball and a church service. Leonora’s heart sank further with every item Alessandro added to the list. She didn’t have to search very far back in her memory to produce an unhappy image of the horrors of her one and only attempt at ‘glamour’ dressing, and the howls of laughter with which her brothers had greeted her appearance in the prom dress she had been persuaded into buying by a university friend for their finals ball. She just wasn’t the pretty dress type—never mind the glam cocktail dress type. Whenever she did have to attend any kind of formal event she always stuck to a plain tuxedo trouser suit, with the jacket worn over a simple silk camisole top.

      ‘I really think it would be much easier if you chose someone else to accompany you,’ she felt obliged to say, her face burning when he looked at her in a way that made her feel as though she was piloting a plane that had just dropped ten thousand feet through the sky without any warning.

      ‘I’m sure you do,’ he agreed dryly.

      ‘You must know dozens of women who would be more suitable.’

      ‘That depends on how you define suitability,’ he told her. ‘Certainly I know many women who possess the sophistication and the beauty to carry off such a role, but, as I’ve already said, their compliance with my requirements would lead to them making demands for payment that I am not prepared to make. Whereas, whilst you may lack what they possess, I have the advantage of knowing that you will follow my wishes to the letter or risk costing your brother his job.’

      ‘I can’t see what can possibly be so important about accompanying you to a few social events that it necessitates a vow of absolute obedience and my agreement to your total control over that obedience.’ Leonora chafed against his warning.

      ‘I have my reasons for wishing to ensure that the woman who accompanies me to these events conducts herself in such a way that there can be no doubt in anyone’s mind that she is wholly and absolutely committed to me and only to me, and at the same time also conducts herself with dignity and elegance—of manner and mind.’

      ‘So a stunning Z-list glamour puss whose modus СКАЧАТЬ