Chapter Four
SANTE GLANCED AT the clock in the corner of his screen and grimaced.
He didn’t want this meeting but he had been absent from the office a lot.
He should’ve scheduled it himself, controlled the environment more.
Excluded her. Because the open-door thing was the worst ever.
He’d end that little experiment immediately.
As a safety net for keeping his interactions with her appropriate, it was a complete fail.
When he caught sight or sound of her, he forgot anyone else, anything else, existed.
She was fascinating and it was a constant source of frustration because he did not want to be fixated.
He rose and walked to close the door just in time to watch her walk across the foyer carrying a platter to the boardroom.
She glanced up and caught him staring. She paused.
No point pretending he wasn’t watching her.
He’d warned her he would, so he was justified—yes?
But though he should look away, close the door, he couldn’t.
He was trapped. A slow blush mottled every inch of the creamy skin he could see.
Her eyes widened and her lips parted—suspended in that moment of surprise.
She was almost a statue were it not for the thrum of her blood giving her away.
Undeniable awareness captured them both.
With brute strength Sante closed the door.
Closed his eyes. Focused on drawing a breath.
Mia Lorenti was driving him insane. She sounded cool, looked professional, was doing everything perfectly well.
But every so often that heat flashed in her eyes and she spoke with a huskiness that made every muscle within him tighten in sensual response.
His instincts sharpened, too. He’d think she was playing him if it weren’t for the fact that the blushes like that one just now were too awkward, too uncontrollable.
They couldn’t be deliberate. She tried to stop physically reacting to him but couldn’t seem to. A feeling he knew well.
He paced in his office but it wasn’t large enough to burn the excess energy.
He yanked the door open again and stalked out—almost colliding with her on her way back to the kitchenette in the process.
Automatically, he reached out, steadying her.
That brought him far too close—he caught her fresh citrus scent laced with pastry cream sweetness.
He dropped his hands as if he’d been scalded.
But he didn’t step back. He couldn’t. He was frozen.
‘Sante?’
He couldn’t stand that whisper. Nor that soft inquiry in her eyes.
He made himself glance beyond her. There were so many people milling about in the office.
Truthfully, he didn’t remember hiring them all—or had Adele been on a bigger hiring spree while he’d been travelling?
He shook his head, knowing she hadn’t. He’d just been distracted with his last property deal, hence his prolonged absence.
While he kept a close eye on the programming and project files, he did that mostly from a distance and left Adele to deal with the face-to-face issues like thermostat control, supplies, illness, morale, general interaction…
‘It’s okay, they won’t bite,’ Mia murmured.
He glanced back and was immediately lost in the inviting generosity of her looks—the depth of those blue eyes, the endless creaminess of her skin. She was bone-achingly luscious.
Indeed, he was the one tempted to bite. ‘I’m going for a walk,’ he muttered, constricted.
‘But—’
Getting away from her was imperative. He jogged down the stairs out into the spring day, soon enveloped by throngs of tourists.
He would remind himself exactly who was boss.
That he could do this. He’d dealt with far worse than a damned meeting with his own team.
He huffed out several deep breaths. He was fine. This was fine. This was nothing.
He made it back with only a couple minutes to spare. She was hovering outside the boardroom door, her eyes overbright and alert, and he wished he had the strength to look away from her.
‘For a moment there I thought you weren’t going to show,’ she murmured.
Uh-huh, so had he. But he wasn’t going to confirm her worst opinions of him.
He glanced in at the boardroom. Half the team was seated already and emanating a hum of conversation that covered the too-intense conversation he was having with her.
Sante’s stomach rumbled at the sight of the spread on the back table.
An assortment of pastries was in a pile at the farthest end—including some of the cream ones she’d eaten the other day.
But he was forced to enter if he wanted one.
And he really wanted one. So did everyone else.
Of course she hadn’t done this just for him. She’d done this for everyone.
‘You’re spoiling them,’ he muttered.
Mia looked right into his eyes. ‘Doesn’t everyone deserve to be spoilt occasionally?’
How was it possible she could sound so cool yet her gaze be so hot?
She was a complete contradiction. Seemingly so controlled yet on the verge of combustion at the same time.
Or maybe he was projecting his own feelings.
Energy surged within him again. That walk had been pointless.
How was he supposed to make idle chat with his employees when all he wanted was to look at her?
When all he wanted was to lose himself in the soft generosity of her form?
‘You won’t be attending the session,’ he clarified crisply.
‘No.’ That light in her eyes dimmed and her flush deepened. ‘I’ll pop in only to ensure everyone has everything they need.’
‘Good.’ He couldn’t concentrate when she was around.
* * *
Mia hid at the back of the boardroom and tried not to let her hurt anger show.
Tried not to watch Sante too obviously. As she’d expected, every one of his coders and creatives had turned up.
She’d worked so hard trying to ensure everyone had comfort and space.
She’d sourced pastries from her favourite bakery, balanced them out with salads and fresh fruit, but while the spread was sensational, it was clearly Sante himself who was the draw.
Just as she’d known he would be. Not that he looked at all pleased about it.
Not that he even wanted her in the room.
Which was rude enough, and couldn’t the guy manage the smallest smile of welcome to his baby geniuses?
He put a pastry on the plate he’d taken and turned, encountering her frank stare.
He turned to stone. She shot him a wide smile back, damned if she was going to let him know he’d killed her mood.
He blinked. Broke eye contact. Frowned harder.
The room was so packed she left the door open so air could circulate freely. So she could eavesdrop. Given the glass and light, she could already see him.
It wasn’t a straightforward meeting from the start. There was no round-up of where projects were at, like the calls she made at the start of each day. He just went straight to it.
‘What are the problems?’
Momentary silence. Then Sante glanced to his left. ‘Davide? What’s the issue stopping the pop-app development?’
Davide coughed, coloured then admitted he had no idea.
‘Good,’ Sante answered. ‘Honesty is good. So let’s break it down.’
He clicked to project a file on the large screen.
To the right of the code, Mia saw the chat list full of suggestions.
Comments from the username ‘S’ were plastered down the field.
The guy mightn’t be in the office much but he was all over their files.
He hadn’t needed the catch-up; he already knew each project inside and out.
Mia didn’t catch what someone said but Sante went very still for a moment before suddenly bursting into an explanation, almost frenzied in speed and detail.
He paced, energy sparking from him, a marker in each hand, and swiftly covered the glass board behind him in incomprehensible scribble, though apparently everyone else present could both read and understand it.
He was a conduit for electricity; the atmosphere in the room surged with energy.
Everyone leaned forward, fully focused and hanging on his every word—and there were so many words tumbling from him with speed until they suddenly spaced out into nothing as his brain raced too far ahead of his tongue.
Everyone else simply tried to catch up while he amended the mess on the board with more scribble but in another colour.
Fascinated, Mia slipped in the back of the room to watch the frenzy of question, answer, deeper explanation—almost none of which she understood.
‘The guy’s a machine,’ one of the coders near Mia muttered. ‘I don’t know how he does it.’
‘Another level entirely,’ the guy seated in front of her agreed.
It went for far longer than she’d put in the damned schedule.
As Mia replenished the snacks and brought in fresh coffee, she finally realised the disconcerting truth.
This disparate brilliant bunch of people Sante had assembled wasn’t dreaming up ideas for him to take and monetise; they were here to develop and realise the ideas he’d put forward to them.
They were in teams to dissect and test all kinds of different possibilities because Sante had too many viable schemes to be able to consider fully all on his own.
He mightn’t appear much in the office but he made notes within their projects on the daily—he knew exactly where each of them were at without needing to ask.
The man was on another level in everything—intelligence, drive, strength and yes, looks.
Even with his perma-frown and distancing demeanour.
She was fascinated. But only in the same way as his underlings; it definitely wasn’t that she wanted him in a sexual way.
But the churning feeling in her lower belly begged to differ.