The Secret Kept From The Italian

She gasped and looked down in horror. ‘Oh, no...’

‘It doesn’t matter...’

‘It does. I can’t leave a mess in an office I’ve just cleaned.’

‘Then we won’t leave it.’

He smiled, the wry yet intent look in his eyes as good as telling her that this was not going to serve as a distraction from his true purpose, or at least not for long. Yet what did he, magnetic sexy billionaire that he was, want with her?

Of course, the answer was glaringly obvious. Maisie blinked, rooted to the spot, as Antonio fetched a cloth and some carpet cleaner and began to scrub the stain.

He wanted sex. That was what rich, powerful men wanted with women like her. The only thing. Yet here he was, cleaning the carpet for her. She didn’t understand him. She didn’t understand herself, and how she could actually be tempted by such a sordid proposition.

Sex with a stranger. That was what she was actually thinking about right now. Yet perhaps Antonio wasn’t thinking of sex at all; perhaps he was just being kind, a little flirty, humouring the housekeeper. Pure mortification shot through her, turning her insides to ice and her face fiery. Hot and cold, that was how she felt. Hot and cold right through.

Antonio tossed the cleaning supplies back onto her trolley and then straightened, turning to her with a wickedly sexy smile.

‘Now, then,’ he said. ‘Where were we?’

She was blushing, right to the roots of her hair. Antonio noted her change in colour with interest, just as he’d noted the way she’d responded to his finger against her lips. And he’d responded, desire arrowing through him along with something deeper. He’d meant what he said when he’d told her she was loving and good. She seemed, at that moment, like the most uncomplicated, honest and kind person he’d ever encountered, and he craved that as much as he craved her body. Well, almost.

Maisie tilted her chin a little, her eyes flashing emerald fire. ‘Where were we, exactly?’ she asked, her voice a little croaky yet full of challenge and bravado.

Antonio smiled. ‘I think,’ he murmured as he skimmed his fingers along her cheek, her skin like warm satin under their tips, ‘we were right here.’

Maisie closed her eyes, gritting her teeth as if she had to endure his touch and yet Antonio knew better. Her whole body trembled as if she was strung through with a wire and he was plucking it. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ she whispered.

‘I haven’t even kissed you yet.’

She opened her eyes, shocked despite everything that had already happened, the tension crackling in the air. ‘Yet?’

‘Yet,’ Antonio confirmed. ‘Surely, Maisie, you know it’s only a matter of time? You want me and I want you. Very much. I want to forget all the grief and sadness, and I want to remember...this.’ Gently, so she could pull away if she really wanted to, he drew her towards him. Their hips bumped and her breasts brushed his chest. Her body quivered and her eyes looked like huge, glassy pools, the colour of ferns.

Part of him, a large part, wanted to drive his hands through her wild, auburn hair and plunder her mouth, lose himself in the oblivion of lust with no thought to the wide-eyed woman before him.

But of course he couldn’t do that. Maisie was too lovely for such coarse treatment. So he took his time, letting his gaze move slowly over her as she adjusted to being so near to him, the shift in their bodies as well as the shift in the air. Flirtation had turned to anticipation. Expectation.

‘You’re very lovely,’ he murmured as he wound a reddish curl around his finger, tugging it gently so she had to come even closer. ‘Very, very lovely.’

‘So are you,’ she returned on a shaky laugh. ‘But you must know how handsome you are.’

He laughed, because there was something so delightfully refreshing about her artless candour. ‘Maybe you could show me.’

She sucked in a breath and then shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t know how.’

He tugged that curl again. ‘You could kiss me.’

A lovely pink blush washed over her face in a tide of colour. ‘I...couldn’t.’

‘You could.’

‘I wouldn’t know how,’ she repeated, her face even fierier now.

‘So I’m meant to do all the work and seduce you?’ he teased gently, and she bit her lip.

‘You don’t have to,’ she muttered, looking away. ‘It’s not like I’m asking.’

He laughed softly, enjoying the repartee as much as the delicious anticipation of her kiss. ‘I’m asking,’ he told her. ‘In fact, I’m demanding.’

‘Demanding...?’

‘Kiss me, Maisie.’

She turned back to him with wide, shocked eyes. He would have thought she was offended except for the flare of excitement in their emerald-bright depths, the way her teeth sank into her lower lip as she considered his request—no, his demand.

‘You’re looking at my mouth like it’s a mountain to climb,’ he observed wryly. They’d barely touched and he was finding it hard to hold on to his light, laughing manner. The need was growing inside him—a torrent, a torment, and soon it would be overwhelming.

‘It feels like it,’ Maisie admitted. ‘I’m not... I’m not adventurous.’

‘But you want to kiss me.’ It was a statement, not a question. He saw and felt her answer in the tremble of her body, the dilation of her pupils, the way her tongue darted out to moisten her plump pink lips.

‘Yes...’

Antonio drew back a little. ‘You sound uncertain.’ But only a little.

‘This is so outside my realm of experience,’ Maisie said on a huff of disbelieving laughter. ‘I feel like I’ve fallen into a fairy tale or down a rabbit hole.’

‘Then enjoy the ride,’ Antonio suggested. He wondered briefly about warning her that this was a one-night stand, a brief moment of pleasure. But he didn’t want to break the mood and surely it was obvious? Relationships didn’t start between strangers on an empty office floor at two o’clock in the morning. Maisie seemed refreshingly honest and artless, but she wasn’t dumb.

‘Enjoy the ride,’ she repeated slowly, savouring each word as if it were a sip of fine wine. ‘Now, that’s something I don’t think I’ve ever done before.’

Antonio raised his eyebrows. ‘No?’

‘No. Definitely not.’

‘Then maybe now is the time.’

Maisie took a deep, slow breath and raised her resolute gaze to his. Antonio felt a blaze of triumph burn through him; he knew that look. She’d made up her mind.

‘Maybe I should,’ she said, and then she stood on her tiptoes and brushed her lips against his, feather-light, whisper-soft. Antonio remained still under her hesitant caress, waiting to see what she would do next. She drew back, frowning a little. ‘Didn’t you...didn’t you like it?’

‘Of course I liked it,’ Antonio was quick to reassure her. ‘But how can I be satisfied with barely a mouthful when what I really want is a meal? A feast?’ He let her see the heat simmering in his gaze as his mouth dropped to her lips. This really was the most interesting and exquisite foreplay, and like nothing else he’d ever done with a woman. ‘Kiss me again, Maisie.’

And she did, this time pressing her body as well as her lips against his, one slender hand curling over his shoulder. It was clumsy and hesitant and somehow perfect. This time Antonio couldn’t keep from responding. He spanned her waist with his hands, revelling in her softness, and drew her even more snugly against him, so their bodies were in sensual alignment. He felt a shudder go through her at his obvious arousal, and he paused, waiting for her to catch up. To take the next step.

And she did, kissing him again, her tongue darting out to touch his lips like a shy butterfly. Antonio captured her mouth against his own, deepening the kiss, plundering her silken depths as he’d been longing to.

Need roared through him, his blood rushing through his veins, pounding in his head. He’d meant to go slowly, to be civilised and controlled about the whole thing, but all his careful plans fell apart as Maisie gave herself to him so generously, so artlessly. He backed her up across the room, all the way to the sofa, and his last remnant of self-control kept him from practically throwing her onto its leather cushions. Instead he laid her down gently, and she stared up at him with wide, shocked eyes.