At the Boss's Beck and Call. Anna Cleary

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СКАЧАТЬ a seismic shift in who and what she was.

      But Alessandro didn’t know that. If she could just hang onto that fact…

      She steeled her nerve, and gave the conference-room door a gentle inwards push.

      The small room seemed crammed. Not that Stiletto had such a large staff, only six in editorial, plus two part-time assistants, but it was rare to see everyone assembled at the same time. With the publicity staff, and the sales and production people, the numbers swelled to the twenties. Grateful to see an empty chair not too far inside the door, Lara crept to it as noiselessly as she could.

      All the organised people who’d managed to arrive on time were sitting silent and watchful, listening. In the absence of Bill, their dreamy, slightly slipshod ex-Managing Director, Cinta from Sales and Marketing had volunteered to stand up on behalf of the company. Looking as sinuous as ever in a dress that had been spray-painted to her bones, Cinta was delivering a flowery welcome speech for the takeover team in the sultry voice she assumed for really attractive men.

      Alessandro.

      Lara spotted him at once, her heart shaking like a quake zone. A glimpse only, a mere flash, but it was him all right, seated to one side of the lectern, right next to the terrifyingly groomed woman with the razor cut bob and the fantastic suit whom Cinta introduced as Donatuila Capelli, one of Scala’s top executives from the New York office. Lara could believe it. Every thread the woman wore screamed Fifth Avenue.

      Lara sat down just as Donatuila got up to deliver a few bracing words in a fabulous deep, husky Manhattan accent, before embarking on a slick presentation of the latest on Scala’s product sales. Lara was thankful that, with so much going on, Alessandro wouldn’t have noticed her late arrival. She was so glad she’d decided to dress up, even if her boots were killers.

      At the other end of the room, Alessandro sat frozen for seconds, then deliberately relaxed his muscles and concentrated on breathing until the roaring sensation in his blood eased. It was her. No doubt of it, that late arrival was Lara Meadows. The blonde hair he remembered, if quite a lot longer now, the distinctive tilt of her chin, her graceful, willowy form. No other woman entering a room had ever had that effect on him.

      And neither would she, ever again. It had simply been the shock of the initial sighting. Understandable, considering he’d scanned the room and resigned himself to believing her absent. It had even occurred to him that she might have quit rather than face him. But no, she wasn’t lying low or fleeing for cover. Unlike the rest of her colleagues, she was merely late.

      Late.

      He had to hand it to her. That behaviour was nothing short of casual.

      He made an infinitesimal lean to the right, and in a chink between the rows saw her cross her legs as she relaxed into her chair. The long, shapely legs he remembered were partially encased in long boots, drawing attention to silky, smooth knees. Sexy, but… Something like a hot needle pierced his professional composure and homed straight to that raw nerve. Insolente was the word that boiled up in him.

      The sheer gall of her to be late. The gall. Of all the people in the room who should be anxious to demonstrate courtesy… Who should have left no stone unturned to ensure of meeting her obligation this morning.

      Here was a woman who knew nothing of respect.

      If Lara craned her neck she could just see one lean hand resting on a dark-clad knee. A further tilt and she could see his face. A study in bronze and ebony, he was frowning down at the floor, his black brows lowered, but even from this distance she could see he had the same thick, dark lashes, the classically sculpted cheekbones and chiselled jaw.

      That handsome jaw was sternly set, in fact, making him look rather grimmer than she’d hoped, until something Donatuila Capelli said roused him from his reverie and he lifted his gaze to her with a polite, questioning smile.

      Then the most ravishing thing about that lean, strong face came flooding back to Lara with such evocative power every muscle in her body made an involuntary clench.

      That devil’s mockery in the tilt of his brows. The ability of his firm, sensuous mouth to remain grave, even solemn, when he was amused. And his eyes. Those brilliant dark eyes, so seductive, so expressive of fathomless depths of subtlety and sophistication.

      Ignoring her mad pulse, Lara clung to her chair and held herself taut and resistant. She was over him. She’d been over him long since. He was the man who’d kissed her goodbye, then married someone else. But when he uncoiled his long, lean limbs with leisurely grace, rose, swept them all with a long, deep glance, then commenced his address in his beautiful, deep, faintly accented voice, she remembered why she’d gone overboard.

      Fallen in love.

      Gone truly, madly, deeply…insane.

      She shrank into her chair, her heart racketing into a drum-roll. Had he seen her yet?

      Alessandro sent a measuring glance over the small audience in their jeans and boots and arty jewellery, careful to avoid the back row and the blonde whose imprint was branded onto his soul.

      Normally, he was a tolerant administrator. When Head Office sent him out after a takeover to settle the blood and dust, then restructure the new acquisition into an entity resembling a company, it was his practice to reassure the new workforce of their job security, offer them a pay-rise and improve their conditions.

      Unfortunately, there were some situations when a man needed to make his authority clear and unequivocal. This irreverent attitude some Australians had, this casualness, needed to be checked. The arrogance displayed by some employees of this sad little company needed to be nipped in the bud. Let them quake a little while he showed them how tenuous their comfort zones really were.

      There would be no larrikins working for Scala Enterprises.

      Discarding the soothing tone it was his practice to open with, he postponed mention of the gifts he’d come bearing, and cut directly to business.

      ‘Prepare yourselves for some changes.’

      At first Lara hardly heard the words that held her colleagues pinned to their chairs, delivered in Alessandro’s dark cioccolata tones. There was an electric tension in the room outside her own, but she was too absorbed in examining her ex-lover, drinking in every detail of him, to register immediately the full import of everything he said.

      As she gazed at his beautiful, austere face a wave of poignant emotion welled up in her and she could barely hold back tears. So much was associated with him in her heart.

      If this cool, authoritarian Alessandro wasn’t quite the man who’d flirted with and teased her and made her feel like the most desirable woman in the world, he was sexier, if possible. Still so lithe and athletic-looking in his dark, exquisitely cut suit, with his olive tan and five-o’clock shadow, it was clear he took rigorous care of that powerful six-three frame. She calculated that he must be nearly thirty-five, since she’d just turned twenty-seven. An experienced, man-of-the-world thirty-five. In six years the character lines in his lean, handsome face had deepened, and he looked more focused, the image of a successful, hard-headed businessman.

      And a marchese.

      One whose dulcet tones could point out some harsh realities. She stopped listening for that elusive accent, and started hearing the words. Apart from that paper he’d delivered at the book convention, she’d СКАЧАТЬ