Maybe because it was nearly Christmas and the sharp, cold
weather had jolted her senses. Or maybe because she'd just
had enough. But something had to change. It had to.
Angie's fingers trembled and she looked at them curiously,
as if they belonged to someone else. But no, those neat,
unvarnished nails belonged to her—a foolish woman with
an empty heart which ached for a man who was beyond her
reach. Who barely even noticed she was a member of the
opposite sex—and treated her as he might treat one of
his many powerful cars. And while Riccardo treated his cars
with care—she wasn't an inanimate, functional
object, was she? She was a living, breathing woman
with desires of her own which were never going to be met.
She had to leave him—she had to. Because if
she wasn't careful she was going to waste her whole life
loving a man who could never love her back. And sooner or
later even her dreams would be smashed when he picked a
suitable bride from all the actresses and models he'd dated
over his action-packed life.
Riccardo Castellari, her boss—and the man who pretty
much haunted her every waking thought. Well, not for much
longer. Come the New Year and she was going to start looking
for a new job—far away from the dizzy distraction of
the black-eyed Italian who could make a woman swoon at a
hundred paces with just a flick of that lazy smile. Except
that he hadn't been smiling much lately. His mood had been
dark—his short temper more frayed than usual and,
unusually, Angie wasn't sure why.
'Cheer up, Angie—it's nearly Christmas!'
As the words of the junior secretary cut into her thoughts
Angie summoned up a smile. 'It certainly is,' she agreed
softly as she looked around the staffroom.
Nearly Christmas and the normally tasteful offices of
Castellari International were decked out with seasonal holly
and the occasional hopeful sprig of mistletoe. When he'd
first set up the London headquarters of his highly lucrative
global business, Riccardo had banned tinsel on the grounds
of bad taste. But gradually he'd given in to popular demand
as garish strand after garish strand was introduced with
every year which passed. This year the staffroom seemed to
resemble Santa's Grotto, thought Angie wryly—and some
of the offices weren't much better.
Glittering silver, gold, scarlet and greens were looped
around every available picture and door jamb and fairy
lights festooned the fax machines. The coffee shop down the
road was playing corny Christmas songs all day and yesterday
the Salvation Army band had stood
in the square and played carols so soaringly beautiful that
Angie had had to swallow back tears as she'd fished around
in her purse for a crumpled five-pound note.
Yes, it was nearly Christmas, and wasn't that part of the
whole problem—and the reason why she was feeling so
emotionally wobbly? Because Christmas did something to the
world at large and to individuals in particular. It
crystallised all your hopes and fears. It made you yearn and
wish and dream. And no matter how hard you tried—it
made you realise all the things you were missing in life.
'Are you looking forward to tonight's office party?' asked
the junior, a sweet young secretary named Alicia who'd only
joined a few months ago.
Angie pulled a face of mock-horror. 'Are you kidding?'
Alicia looked at her eagerly. 'What's it like? Everyone says
it's absolutely fantastic—one of London's classiest
restaurants and with no expense spared! And is it true that
Mr Castellari stays for the
whole time?'
Angie had had enough experience of juniors being slightly
overawed by her boss. Hadn't she once been like Angie
herself? Sneaking glances at his dark, beautiful face from
afar and wondering how a man ever got to be that gorgeous.
The only difference was that she had been plucked out of the
typing pool by Riccardo himself and elevated to the dizzy
status of his secretary overnight. She wasn't quite sure
why he'd chosen her—she had just been
overjoyed that he had. And now? Well, now she wasn't so
sure. Sometimes she thought her life would be less
complicated if she had stayed put in the
typing pool. That way she would have moved on by now, gone
to pastures new—and far away from the intoxicating
presence of the sexy Italian.
She smiled at Alicia. 'He certainly does. He's there right
until the end.' Or the
bitter end, as Riccardo
rather bitingly put it. Truth to tell, he wasn't crazy on
Christmas—but once a year he put himself out and
fulfilled all the expectations of the Castellari workforce.
He lavished money on a party which still had people talking
in February and he gave everyone a generous bonus. Even her.
Though hadn't she sometimes longed for him to give her
something a little more…
personal?
Recognising that there was no sense in longing for the
impossible, Angie stood up and flicked a tiny piece of fluff
from the front of her jersey skirt. 'In fact, I'd better go
and finalise a few arrangements—I'm expecting Riccardo
back any time now.'
'Are you?' questioned Alicia enviously.
'Yes. He's on his way from the airport.' Angie knew his
schedule down to the last second. The dark limousine would
be speeding its way towards central London and Riccardo
would be stretching his long legs out in the back. He would
have loosened his tie and he might be flicking through some
paperwork. Or talking on the phone in one of the three
languages he spoke. He might even be exchanging a few
desultory comments with his Italian-speaking driver,
Marco—who doubled as a bodyguard when the need arose.
'In fact…' Angie glanced at her watch '… if
the roads
are clear, then he might be—' Her beeper began
emitting a high-pitched little squeal and she could do
absolutely nothing about the rapid acceleration of her
heart. 'Excuse me,' she said, with a brisk little smile
which hid her instinctive excitement, 'but he's in the
building.'
On her low-heeled, perfectly polished navy shoes, she sped
along to her office which adjoined Riccardo's— a
breath of pleasure escaping her lips as she walked into the
light and spacious room. Because it didn't matter how many
times she saw it, she could never get over the fact that she
worked in a place as beautiful as this. It was, Angie
reflected, like a picture postcard come to life.
The Castellari headquarters looked out over the vast and
impressive space of Trafalgar Square and the world-famous
landmark always looked beautiful with its pluming fountain
and tall statue, but never more so than at Christmas time.
The iconic fir tree sent over each year by the King of
Norway twinkled brightly and every single window as far as
the eye could see was alive with brightly coloured Christmas
lights. Angie stared out of the window. It looked…
magical.
But then she heard the sound of a familiar footfall ringing
along the corridor. A footfall she would have recognised
even if it were treading in thick snow and she quickly moved
into his office to greet him, wiping all traces of
wistfulness from her face and replacing it with the calm and
efficient expression which Riccardo had learned to expect
from his right-hand woman. But nothing could stop the sudden
acceleration of her heart
as the door opened and she looked into his dark,
heart-breakingly handsome face.
'Ah, Angie. You are here. Good.' His deep, accented voice
washed over her skin like raw silk as he dropped his
briefcase and coat onto one of the squashy leather sofas.
His black hair was tousled as if he had been running his
fingers through it and he had loosened his tie as she'd
known he would. A brief smile was slanted in her direction
and then he picked up a sheaf of papers and began flicking
through them. 'Get me the paperwork on the Posara takeover
bid, would you?'
'Certainly, Riccardo,' she replied smoothly as she
automatically scooped up the beautiful cashmere coat and
hung it up.
Did her features betray her probably unreasonable
hurt—that the man she had not seen for a fortnight
should barely deign to greet her? Not a
hello or a
how are you? If she had been substituted by one of
the other secretaries, would he even have
noticed?
But good secretaries didn't obsess about the fact that
they might as well have been invisible for all the notice
that was taken of them. And she prided herself on being a
good secretary.
'Good trip?' she asked politely as she deposited the file he
wanted onto the centre of his desk.
He shrugged. 'New York is New York. You know. Busy, buzzy,
beautiful.'
Angie didn't know, as it happened—because she'd never
been there. 'I suppose it must be,' she observed politely,
biting down the question she longed to ask. About whether or
not he'd seen Paula Prentice—the
woman all the papers had been linking him to a year ago.
Paula with her blonde and tanned beauty, her amazingly white
teeth and a body which had been voted Most Lusted After by a
leading men's magazine.
When Riccardo had been dating the Californian lovely, he had
spent many weekends in the Big Apple—and Angie would
anxiously study his face on his return, wondering if he was
going to announce that he was planning to make the stunning
Paula his bride. But he hadn't. To Angie's enormous relief,
they'd split—again, according to the papers, since
Riccardo certainly didn't discuss his private life with his
secretary.
And how about the de Camilla account?' she questioned,
because that, after all, was the deal he'd gone out there to
oversee.
'Frustrante! Frustrating,' he translated, tugging
his silk tie off completely as he glanced up at her.
'I could just about work that out for myself, Riccardo.'
'Oh?' Jet dark brows were elevated. Did his sensible,
reliable mouse of a secretary have frustrations in her own
life? he wondered. He doubted it. The only frustrations he
could imagine
her having were being unable to find
a new knitting pattern. Or her television breaking down,
perhaps. He glittered her an ebony glance. 'You have been
taking the crash course in Italian, perhaps?'
'Hardly! My Italian may be poor but I have a comprehensive
knowledge of exclamations and profanities which I've managed
to acquire after working for you for so long!' she said
crisply. 'Now, would you like some coffee?'
Riccardo gave the ghost of a smile. 'I would
love
some coffee—could you tell?'
Hopelessly, she noted the way his voice dipped when he said
love like that. 'Of course I could, because—'
'Because?'
'You're entirely predictable.'
'Am I?'
'As the sun which rises in the morning sky. And in a minute
you'll start moaning about the fact that tonight's the
office party—'
'It's
tonight?' Riccardo raked long olive fingers
through already tousled black hair.
'Madonna mia!'
'You see?' she murmured as she walked over to the machine
which had been exported here at great expense from his
native Italy. 'Entirely predictable.'
Ignoring the file in front of him, Riccardo sat back and
watched her for a moment, thinking that she was the only
woman whom he would allow occasionally to tease him. She was
certainly a lot less timid than when he had first employed
her—though her dress sense hadn't improved one little
bit. Disparagingly, he flicked a glance over her neat skirt
and the pristine blouse which accompanied it and he
suppressed a very Italian shudder. How dull she looked! But
perhaps he was ill-advised to criticise her appearance under
the circumstances. After all—hadn't her plainness been
one of the reasons he'd employed her?
He'd been looking for someone to replace the motherly figure
who had guarded his office since his arrival in London but
who was leaving to spend time
with her grandchildren, no matter how much he'd tried to
persuade her otherwise.
It had been a gruelling day of interview after
interview—when it had seemed that every would-be
glamour model in the universe had tried to convince him that
she wanted nothing more but to type his letters and answer
the phone. He hadn't believed one of them—not when
their accompanying actions had belied the sincerity of their
words.
Riccardo knew what he wanted, and he did not want
distractions in the office—women crossing and
uncrossing their legs to show him peeps of stocking tops, or
leaning forward to accentuate their cleavage. In fact, he
regarded his time at work as a break from the constant
attentions of women which had plagued him since his early teens.
The afternoon interviewing session which had fielded a
clutch of admirably qualified graduates had proved no more
fruitful in his search to find someone prepared to work for
him on
his terms. Not one of them had flinched when
he had flicked a cool, challenging gaze and stated that what
he wanted was an old-fashioned secretary. Not an
assistant—and certainly not an equal. He was not
interested in teaching them anything and there would be no
fast-track promotion through the business.
His outrageous assertion had not put off a single candidate
and yet Riccardo had moodily rejected every one of
them—mainly on the illogical grounds that there wasn't
one he couldn't have bedded before the evening was out. And
he wanted a secretary, not a lover.
But then he had been on his way home and had passed the open
door of the typing pool—to see some mouse of a thing
bent over the filing cabinet. To a man with the Italian
sensibilities of Riccardo, her appearance was
appalling—a functional skirt which did her no favours
and hair scraped back into an unflatteringly tight bun.
He remembered glancing at his watch, thinking how late it
was and admiring her dedication to duty before deciding that
she probably didn't have much to rush home to; this mouse
was unlikely to have a line of men beating their way to her
door. Maybe she was one of those women who lived at the
office, he thought wryly.
She must have been alerted to his presence for she had
whirled round, fingers flying to her bare lips—her
cheeks colouring a rosy-pink when she saw him standing
there. It was a long time since a woman had blushed in his
presence and for a moment a faint smile had played around
Riccardo's lips.
'Can I… can I help you, sir?' she had questioned with
the kind of deference which told him that she knew exactly
who he was.
'Maybe you can.' His eyes had narrowed as he took in the
dreary surroundings of the communal room and then back to
study her surprisingly long fingers. 'Can you type?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Fast?'
'Oh, yes, sir.'
'And what would you say,' he had asked, 'if I asked you to
make me a coffee?'
© 2003-2026