Chapter Four #2
And that was a huge problem. Not only was Sante her brother’s enemy, he was effectively her boss. She backed out of the room, sternly reminding herself that the last time she’d gotten involved with someone at work she’d blown up her life.
Barely eighteen and only a few months before his untimely death, Mia had fully fallen out with her father and taken a job as a nanny.
She’d loved the glimpse into a happy family life that she’d never had.
Then she’d met Oliver, the young ‘fun uncle’ of her charges.
Five years older than her, he’d told her she was everything he’d ever wanted.
Which was all an attention-starved Mia had needed to hear.
She’d desperately yearned to be loved and she was such a cliché for being the nubile young nanny who’d slept with someone in her employer’s family.
Her father’s jaundiced judgement of her as a party girl in high school hadn’t been entirely inaccurate.
She’d liked to escape school to go out dancing, but actually she’d avoided one-on-one physical intimacy.
Deep down she’d been afraid her father was right.
That she’d be needy and make bad choices in the heat of impulse—like her mother had.
But Oliver had been patient and persistent.
He’d not just wooed her, he’d love-bombed her and eventually she’d believed him.
But once she was wrapped around his little finger he’d alternated between attentive or absent.
She’d tried harder to be more what he wanted.
Tried not to be too much so he wouldn’t get sick of her.
She’d wanted him to keep wanting her. And in all that emotional angst she’d become distracted.
She’d messed up at work—not majorly, but repeatedly in small ways.
Until the day she’d found out—publicly—that Oliver had a serious girlfriend. He’d just been using Mia.
She’d been mortified when the housekeeper had watched her exposure with patronising derision.
Her colleagues had all known. They’d all watched her waltz into it.
They’d actually taken bets as to whether it would be the father or the brother who had her.
When she’d confronted Oliver he’d actually laughed.
Was she serious? Oh, he would sleep with her but he’d never settle with someone like her.
She’d left the job that day, her confidence so obliterated she’d avoided intimacy since, choosing to prove to herself that she was capable of working hard and not wrecking her own future by acting on emotional impulse or desire.
Now she knew—mixing business with pleasure always ended in a mess.
So she was going to do a good job here and now.
She would not screw up. That meant not screwing with Sante in any way.
That also meant not staring at him like he was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen—even though he was.
She would maintain her professionalism. And she would not provoke him about the past—because she was beginning to wonder whether she didn’t know as much about all that as she’d thought she had.
But she never should have suggested Sante leave his office door open.
Now she heard him actually laughing and felt stupidly wounded when he didn’t treat her the way he did the coders or the legal and accounting staff.
And now—at the end of the meeting—he discovered that she’d established an inter-office league with a ‘game of the week.’ She’d set up a gaming console in the far corner of the office with a couple of controllers, and to her amazement he’d added his name to the property division team and was helping them—her team—catch up to the coders’ tally before the end of day and it was…
too okay of him when she needed him to remain a villain.
When she needed to stop herself slipping beneath his spell.
When she’d worked on board the cruise liners she’d always rolled her eyes at the guys who’d leered at her.
The ones who’d told her they’d taken one look and wanted her.
Now she was that guy. Driven by hormones and basic instinct.
The physical yearning she felt was almost unbearable.
It was lust at first look and it was only getting worse.
This was different to her experience with Oliver—that had been slow burn and flattery until he’d flipped on her.
Her reaction to Sante was too strong, too all-consuming.
But she could and would shake it off. Except she was parked outside his office nine hours a day. And he was inside it. Constantly.
She glowered first thing Thursday morning when she got in early as usual and saw him lodged in place at his desk.
‘You slept in the office again, didn’t you?’ she said accusingly.
While his suit was fresh and his hair damp and more unruly than ever, he had a burning look in his eyes and his muscular frame was tense. Was he tired after yesterday? She understood the man had introvert tendencies; had it been too much? In which case, why was he still here?
‘Why do you need to work all night?’ she goaded. ‘I thought you were so rich you couldn’t possibly spend it all.’
‘I work all night if something is so all-consuming that I can’t sleep until I have satisfactory resolution,’ he answered huskily.
Mia stilled, quelling her shiver. The man was intense. ‘Okay, then have this.’
He glanced at the box she had in hand and his eyebrows arched. ‘Why, Mia, are you spoiling me?’
‘No, it’s left over from the meeting yesterday,’ she lied.
He pushed away from his desk and walked round to where she was frozen two steps into his office. ‘And you don’t want it? Are you not well?’
‘No, I’m just…’
‘Being sweet and putting my needs ahead of yours.’
She gaped at him. He actually thought something nice about her? She didn’t trust him and she definitely needed to put distance between them. To get this irresistible magnetism under control.
‘No, I’m putting your staff needs first, hoping this will even out your mood so we have less of the frowning. You did okay yesterday, so we don’t want to ruin the progress now.’
He actually chuckled. ‘We. Wow.’ He picked up the pastry, broke it and held half the resulting slightly squished mess out to her. ‘Then maybe we should manage your mood, too. Share it with me.’
Mia stared at him warily. Was this a dare?
Or was he serious? Serious, apparently. Because he broke it in two, clearly unconcerned about crumbs flaking everywhere.
The generosity was unexpected but oddly, she wasn’t surprised.
She’d watched him yesterday with his coders.
And she could act like an adult. So she took the piece he offered, bit into it and suppressed her moan.
‘Yes.’ His lips quirked. ‘They really are exceptional.’ He demolished his piece in the one gulp.
Of course he was the sort to simply devour what he wanted. A stray thought escaped her tight control—she wished he’d want her.
‘You lied to me,’ he said softly.
Startled, she blinked. ‘What—’
‘That pastry wasn’t from yesterday.’ He moved closer, his mouth curving. ‘That was fresh.’
Was he teasing her? Mia’s pulse jumped.
‘You are spoiling me,’ he added, almost smirking.
No. She was just being a decent human. Not doing anything special for him.
‘I didn’t know you were ambidextrous,’ she babbled.
The corners of his eyes creased and his smile broadened ever so slightly. He was clued in on her desperate deflection. ‘Yes, I’m good with both hands.’
Oh, sure. She really shouldn’t but she really could imagine all kinds of things he could do with those hands.
An ache opened up within her—mingling with regret.
She liked seeing him smile. Why didn’t he smile more?
Why didn’t he tease like this a little more?
It was as if she’d suddenly caught a glimpse behind a big grey wall and seen the playful Sante behind it.
Why did he hide his humour? Why did he stay so distant and serious?
Why was he so very alone despite all this success?
She shouldn’t be so curious. She should remain professional. Keep up her resistance—because she realised now just how easily she could slip beneath his spell. But that could mean more than humiliating gossip—he was her brother’s enemy, wasn’t he?
‘Of course you are,’ she murmured, unable to resist the fire in this moment. ‘You’re good with everything.’
Somehow, he was closer. She’d stepped closer.
He shook his head and blinked and that smile faded. ‘You shouldn’t—’
‘Sante—oh, sorry.’ Paolo cleared his throat.
Mia whirled away, horrified that the lawyer had caught her standing too close to the boss. Being alone with him in his office. She’d been leaning in. She’d gotten too close. She’d made that mistake. Of course she had.
Always-makes-mistakes Mia; always-too-much Mia. And she was beginning to worry she’d made more kinds of mistakes regarding Sante than in his office just now. She felt forced to reconsider what she’d believed for so long—but he didn’t want to discuss it and Dario never would, either.
* * *
Sante set his jaw, irritated as hell by his lawyer’s interruption but at the same time immeasurably grateful.
He’d been about to make a massive mistake—entranced by her interest and attention and proximity.
But at Paolo’s appearance, Mia had fled.
Scarlet-cheeked. Sweet. Utterly unable to hide that responsive light in her eyes. And he was flummoxed.
He’d worked through the night again, desperate to regain his own focus, sparked by the fact he’d struggled to concentrate in the meeting yesterday—hell, he’d gone down a complete rabbit hole with a few of the coders just to pass the time safely, and then sat down and gamed with another couple of them.
He hadn’t gamed in years and had been rustier than he’d liked.
Competitiveness had kicked in. Especially when he’d seen Mia listed as the second-highest scorer in the property team.
He’d been both intrigued and compelled to beat her score.
For a moment there this morning he’d thought he’d dreamed her up.
But he’d been hanging out for her arrival, and her utterly unimpeachable appearance hadn’t disappointed.
She was amusingly determined to give him nothing to pull up.
But while she was professionally, even conservatively dressed, that long skirt hugged her hips and the neat blouse was perfectly buttoned and he just wanted to—
No. He didn’t want to do anything. It wasn’t appropriate to even think anything. And yet, he’d seen her expression light up when she saw him and then she’d offered him some of her breakfast, and any resolve he’d had evaporated.
And he still couldn’t stop watching her.
It was like the more he tried, the more impossible it became.
Aside from his personal distraction, he had to admit the meeting yesterday had gone far better than he’d expected.
Mia had woven through the room a couple of times, keeping an eye on everyone’s comfort.
She’d gone to a lot of trouble, ensuring everyone was at ease—especially that one coder who struggled most with sensorial overwhelm and Sante had never expected to actually show up.
But Mia had enabled him to—radiating positivity, optimism, energy, enthusiasm.
She was like a damned nanny, getting the best out of her charges. But Sante did not want to be babied.
He was supposed to be listening to his lawyer now. Instead, he was locked on watching her walk back to her desk. Vibrant, voluptuous, full of vitality and slightly wild. She was the most devastatingly attractive woman he’d ever seen.
He struggled to focus on Paolo’s questions.
Struggled for a further two hours. He’d failed to shut his door, which meant he could hear whenever she spoke—welcoming his staff as they came in, answering their fairly frequent stupid questions.
Just as he was about to go out and tell them to go do some actual work, she redirected them and got them back on task.
She was annoyingly good at managing them and they clearly liked her.
Excess energy coiled within him, making his skin tight and his resistance weak.
He could get his self-control back. He just needed occupation. He’d wanted to prove to himself that he still had it. That he wasn’t thinking about her all the time. But it was barely an hour before he gave in and stalked out to her desk.
‘No sign of that delivery yet?’
She didn’t look up, just shook her head. ‘You’d have it if it had arrived. I know you’re waiting for it.’
Right, he’d been out too often to ask. But he hesitated, unable to walk away.
‘I promise I’ll bring it to you as soon as it arrives.’ She finally glanced up.
He gazed into her soft eyes and realised that she was managing him, too. Ensuring he had food, coffee, communicating clearly to temper his expectations. The realisation annoyed the hell out of him.
How was he reduced to asking about a set of plans that he didn’t care all that much about?
It was a flimsy excuse to engage with her.
He was pathetic. He’d done too many all-nighters over the years because he was clearly losing his ability to bounce back and redirect his brain.
It was stuck on the one track. He just wanted to be near her.
It didn’t matter that he was playing with fire; he saw the awareness in her eyes.
He knew she felt it, too. That only made it worse.
But he was her boss and he wasn’t going to be this weak.
Why would he be such a fool to get involved with a Lorenti?
But Mia wasn’t like her father, nor her brother. She was far more open. Far more generous with her laughter and warmth.
Screw ‘being seen in the office.’ He’d been present more this week than he had almost all year. His team was great—on fire, in fact, working hard. They didn’t need him. What he needed was a break from everything. Especially her. Immediately.