The Italian Billionaire's Pregnant Bride

‘No. Leave this matter with me and be discreet about it,’ Sergio interposed softly. ‘I’ll handle it.’

‘You’ll handle it, sir?’ his security chief repeated in audible astonishment. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course. I also want that surveillance camera put out of commission right now.’ Sergio tossed the phone down. His astute dark eyes were shot through with derisive gold. So she wasn’t a genuine hard-working salt-of-the-earth cleaner worthy of his respect. Why had he been willing to believe she was for even five minutes? Put that glorious face and body in tandem with the creative chess game aimed at attracting his attention and he had yet another gold-digger in hot and original pursuit.

Open season for the hunt, Sergio mused with sardonic amusement. He was a hell of a good shot and he intended to have some fun. And sooner rather than later, because he was leaving London the next day to compete in a cross-country skiing marathon in Norway. After that he had business to attend to in New York. It would be ten days before he was back in the UK.

Rising to his full imposing height of six feet three inches, Sergio strode out of the office and down the corridor in search of his quarry. He found her dusting a desk. Her fabulous hair glittered in multi-shaded splendour below the ceiling lights. When she straightened and saw him in the doorway, an expression of surprise grew on her delicate features. Grudging amusement assailed Sergio: she knew how to stay in role all right. Looking at that frowning air of enquiry, nobody would have dreamt that she had been teasing and tantalising him with a game that he considered very much his own for almost three weeks.

‘Let’s play chess in the real world, bella mia,’ Sergio suggested with silken cool. ‘I challenge you to finish the game tonight. If you win, you get me. If you lose, you still get me. How can you lose?’

CHAPTER TWO

KATHY stared at Sergio Torrente for a good ten seconds. Her every expectation was shattered by that challenge coming at her out of the blue, and from such a source as the powerfully built male confronting her. For a long time now, she had protected herself by never taking a risk and never stepping out of line to be noticed. Sudden unexpected attention from a stranger and the belated realisation that she had foolishly invited it unnerved her.

Yet she was mortifyingly aware that it was his bold, dark masculine beauty that claimed her attention first. Win or lose, he was on offer? Was he serious? If he was, would she dare to take him up on it? While she’d worked she had told herself that he could not have been half as attractive as she had thought he was. Now here he was again in the flesh to blow that staid and sensible belief right out of the water. Just looking at the proud, chiselled planes of his darkly handsome features gave her the strangest sense of pleasure. A frisson of dangerous exhilaration gripped her while butterflies fluttered in her stomach. She parted her lips without even knowing what she intended to say. ‘I—er—’

Glittering black eyes centred on her with laser beam intensity. ‘Backing down from a face-to-face contest?’ he murmured with unconcealed scorn.

Anger shot through Kathy with a power and sharpness that she had forgotten she could feel and she lifted her chin in answer. ‘Are you kidding?’

Sergio stepped back to allow her to precede him from the room. ‘Then let’s go and play.’

‘But I’m working,’ Kathy pointed out with a slow bemused shake of her head. ‘For goodness’ sake, who are you?’

A mocking ebony brow quirked. ‘Is that a serious question?’

‘Why wouldn’t it be?’

‘I am Sergio Torrente and I own the Torrenco Group,’ Sergio delivered drily, wondering whether she thought it was clever to make what he considered to be an outrageous claim of ignorance. ‘Every company in this block belongs to me. I find it hard to believe that you’re not aware of those facts.’

Kathy was paralysed to the spot by that revelation. It had not even occurred to her that he might be that important. But, even so, she had never heard of him before. She had never been on any floor other than the one she was on now and she had had no interest whatsoever in the business world or the personalities that powered the huge building during the hours of daylight.

‘So will you play?’ Sergio prompted with impatience.

An adrenalin rush was firing self-preservation skills in Kathy. It was clear to her that she had picked the wrong chessboard to get familiar with and the wrong guy. Why had she not even suspected that he might be her opponent? His smooth urbane façade had deceived her, she conceded tautly. He radiated an aura of sophisticated ease and cool. But the breathtaking elegance of his designer suit concealed a purebred predator, for he was a highly aggressive and clever player who took advantage of every tactical opportunity to attack. In short, he was very much an Alpha male incapable of ignoring any perceived challenge to prove his strength. Not a guy to tangle with, not a guy to offend.

‘I could take my break now,’ Kathy told him, ready to get her punishment over with, as instead of beating him in two moves as she had previously planned she decided that it would be wiser to let him win.

Sergio nodded, hooded dark golden eyes nailed to her because he had yet to work out what script she was trying to follow. Was he really supposed to credit that she didn’t know who he was?

‘I’ve had the board moved into my office so that we can play undisturbed.’

Her heart was now beating very fast with nervous tension. He thrust open the door of his office, then stood back. Momentarily she was close enough to catch the faint evocative scent of some expensive male cologne. She snatched in a charged breath. ‘How did you know it was me? How did you find out?’

‘That’s not important.’

‘It’s important to me,’ she dared.

‘Surveillance camera,’ he supplied.

Kathy lost colour. There was a security camera in that hallway? She was appalled by that news. She took her breaks there and, once or twice, when she had been very tired, she had set the alarm on her watch and taken a nap on that sofa. Proof of those facts would be sufficient to put her out of a job.

‘Would you like a drink?’

Her slender figure now tense as a bowstring, Kathy hovered in the centre of the carpet. A pool of light shone across the board and the sofas in one corner. It was a very intimate backdrop. If the supervisor came looking for her and found her in such a situation she would get totally the wrong idea and alcohol was a sackable offence. ‘Are you trying to get me fired?’

‘If you don’t talk, I won’t,’ Sergio countered with lazy indifference.

An automatic negative was on Kathy’s lips, but suddenly a spirit of rebellion sparked inside her. With the proof he already had of her stealing a nap during her break, there was little point splitting hairs. ‘You’re only young once,’ Bridget had scolded that same day. But Kathy had never really known what it was to be young and carefree. Since she had regained her freedom she had followed every rule she met everywhere to the letter, no matter how small the rule, no matter how petty. The habit had become engrained in her, the new secure framework by which she lived. The chess game had been the only deviation and only because she couldn’t resist the temptation of reliving the challenges her late father had once set her. In truth she could not even recall when she had last tasted alcohol and that made her feel pathetic, sad and defiant. She named a fashionable drink that she had seen advertised on a billboard.

‘You seem very tense.’ Sergio passed her a glass. Translucent green eyes rested on him, providing an alluring contrast to her alabaster skin and copper and red streaked hair. Predictably, he went straight for it. ‘Don’t stress, bella mia. I find you incredibly attractive.’

The annoyance and embarrassment that Kathy usually felt at such moments was entirely absent. So, he had been serious. She felt as if her heart were pounding right at the foot of her throat. She was shaken by the discovery that she was thrilled by his approach. Her fingers tightened round the glass, her hand shook a little. She sipped and swallowed, sipped and swallowed again, to conceal the reality of her physical weakness. It was so uncool to be so excited. Locked into his stunning dark golden gaze when she finally raised the courage to look up, she could not have breathed to save her life.

Unhurriedly, Sergio angled his lustrous dark head down. He was testing the boundaries, amusing himself. The delicate fresh scent of her skin made his strong, hard body tauten. Arousal slivered through him with a force that surprised him and speedily tipped him out of teasing mode. He claimed her luscious pink lips with hungry urgency and that first taste only whet his appetite for more.

Kathy couldn’t credit what she was doing, but she wouldn’t have shifted an inch to prevent it happening, either. A storm tide of feeling engulfed her and she couldn’t get enough of it. It was as energising as hitching a ride on a rocket and it left her equally dizzy and disorientated. He kissed her and fireworks of sensation shot through her and she pulsed and tingled with response. Honeyed warmth pooled in her tummy, a tightness forming at her pelvis. She shivered violently when the sensual glide of his tongue probed the tender cave of her mouth. The throb of desire that flashed and stabbed through her slim length was almost too much to bear and she moaned in protest.

‘You are so hot, you burn,’ Sergio framed and, as his deep, dark drawl roughened, a faint Italian accent broke through to mellow the syllables with a lyrical edge. ‘But we have a game to finish.’

Kathy wasn’t quite sure her legs would keep her upright long enough to reach the sofa at her side of the board. She would have found it easier to fall back into his arms than walk away, an acknowledgement that shook her up even more. Her body felt tight, overheated and unfamiliar. She was aware of it in ways that were new to her. All the time her brain was set on enumerating her mistakes. She shouldn’t be in a room alone with him, shouldn’t have allowed him to kiss her, and certainly shouldn’t have encouraged him by responding. But while her intelligence knew each and every one of those things, the hunger he had awakened and the dissatisfaction he had left behind had an even stronger hold on her.

Two moves later, the chess game was over.

When Sergio won, his black brows drew together and then anger illuminated his narrowed gaze to gilded bronze. ‘Either someone else has been telling you how to play for the past three weeks, or you just deliberately threw the game to let me win!’

Kathy was dismayed by his discernment but determined to tough it out. ‘You won…okay?’

‘No, it is not okay. Which was it?’ Sergio countered icily.

The silence felt suffocating. Tension made it hard for her to swallow. She scrambled up. ‘I should get back to work.’

Hauteur stamped on his lean hard features, Sergio vaulted upright, well over six feet of lean, muscular male. ‘You will go nowhere until you give me an answer.’

Kathy dealt him a troubled glance and screened her green eyes. His cold anger took her aback. ‘My goodness, it’s only a game,’ she mumbled.

‘Answer me,’ Sergio commanded.

Kathy heaved a sigh and shifted her hands in a dismissive gesture. ‘I let you win…all right?’

Sergio could not recall when he had last been so outraged by a woman. ‘Is that what you believe I wanted or expected from you? Do you think I am so vain that I need a fake victory to bolster my ego?’ he shot at her with stinging contempt. ‘I don’t need that kind of sacrifice and I don’t like flattery. This is not the way to please me.’

Temper like a red-hot flame was darting through Kathy’s willowy form. ‘Well, then, you should stop throwing your weight around and behaving like a bully!’ she launched back at him half an octave higher. ‘How do you expect me to behave? How am I supposed to cope with you? Let’s not pretend that this is a level playing field or that you gave me a choice—’

‘Don’t shout at me,’ Sergio breathed glacially while inside he reeled in stunned disbelief from that condemnation.

‘You wouldn’t be listening otherwise. I’m sorry I touched your stupid chess set, but it was only meant to be a harmless piece of fun. I’m sorry I let you win and offended you. But I wasn’t trying to please you—I couldn’t care less about pleasing you!’ Kathy flung back at him in disgust. ‘I was trying to placate you…I’m supposed to be working. I don’t want to lose my job. Can I get back to work now?’

Her attitude shone a bright revisionist light on the confrontation for Sergio. He had a brilliant penetrating mind and an unequalled talent for strategy. In business he was invincible, for he united the survival skills and killing instincts of a shark with a similar lack of emotion. He had learned early not to accept people at face value. But would a woman out to impress him shout at him? He had no evidence of anything calculated in Kathy Galvin’s behaviour. Why should she have known who he was?

Sergio reached a decision on the basis of the facts. ‘You really are just the cleaner.’

An affronted flush coloured Kathy’s face as she wondered what on earth that comment was supposed to mean. Had he perhaps thought she was an undercover spy? Or a hooker moonlighting with a mop? ‘Yes,’ she said tightly. ‘Just the cleaner—excuse me.’

As the door flipped shut on her quick exit Sergio swore softly in Italian, because he had not intended to humiliate her. The phone rang.

It was Renzo again. ‘I’ve been running a check on the cleaning lady with the chess fetish—’

‘Unnecessary,’ Sergio interposed.

The older man cleared his throat. ‘Galvin has a dodgy CV, sir. I don’t think she’s what she says she is. Although she’s a very bright girl with a fistful of top grades from school, her employment record only contains some very recent restaurant work. It doesn’t add up. There’s a gap of three years and no adequate explanation for it. According to the résumé she was travelling all that time, but I don’t buy it.’

‘Neither do I.’ His lean, strong face hard, Sergio considered the fact that for the first time in a decade he had almost been conned by a woman.

‘I think she’s probably another bimbo on the make, or even a paparazzo. I’ll ask the cleaning company to remove her from the rota. Thankfully, she’s their problem, not ours.’

But Sergio was unwilling to let Kathy Galvin off so easily. When had he ever walked away from a challenge?

Kathy worked at speed in an attempt to lose her troubled thoughts in energetic activity. The treatment she had received had left her angry and bewildered. Sergio Torrente was a gorgeous guy with an attitude problem. A rampant snob and very proud. Cool at best, he was colder than ice when he was crossed. But when he had kissed her, pure naked excitement had made mincemeat of all his faults. Had he momentarily contrived to forget that she was just the cleaner? He must have done. He was probably at least thirty years old and way too mature for her. She rammed the mop into the bucket with noisy unnecessary force. She had nothing in common with some super-rich older guy who owned a building and made a big fuss when some lesser mortal dared to muck around with his chessboard!

She began to wonder if she was fated to die a virgin. Year after year, life was steadily passing her by. Sergio Torrente was the first bloke she had fancied since Gareth had dumped her. How clever was that? Sexual chemistry was very strange, she mused ruefully. Why hadn’t she warmed to one of the many men who had tried to chat her up at the café? Obviously she was being rather too fussy. Even so, she was convinced that nine out of ten women would find Sergio Torrente pretty much irresistible. She had never gone for boyish men or the type who might almost be described as pretty. His lean dark features contrived to unite classic good looks with a raw and compelling masculinity that was seriously sexy, Kathy ruminated dreamily, wielding her mop with less and less vigour.

‘Kathy…?’

Her head flew up, light green eyes preoccupied. When she saw the subject of her most intimate thoughts standing just ten feet from her she did a double take. As she felt her wretched skin colouring up in a wave of guilty heat she wanted the ground to open up and swallow her alive. ‘Yes?’

‘I owe you an apology.’

Kathy nodded in firm agreement.

Sergio, who had been awaiting a flattering protest at that statement, laughed with reluctant appreciation. She was turning in a prize-winning performance in the sincerity stakes. Was her candour supposed to strike him as a refreshing quality? Appeal to his jaded billionaire palate and need for novelty? He didn’t know and he didn’t care. The fawn-like lashes swept down on her amazing eyes and desire dug talon claws of need into his groin. What did it matter if she sold her story afterwards to some tacky tabloid? One glimpse of her exquisite face and the most basic of male instincts took over. His reaction to her was atavistic and stronger than anything he had felt in a long time. To look at her without touching her almost hurt. He knew that the only thing that would satisfy him now was bedding her. He had never been into self-denial.

‘Will you play another game with me when your shift ends?’ Sergio asked silkily.

Kathy was astonished by the apology and the renewed invitation. In a wary and fleeting collision with brilliant dark eyes as crystal-clear and cold as an underground lake, she sensed the danger of him: the powerful personality reined in below the surface. Clever, ruthless, definitely not the sort of male anyone would want as an enemy. It dismayed her that even sensing those hard-nosed qualities she should still find him incredibly attractive. She swallowed hard, struggling to pay heed to her misgivings. ‘I’m afraid I don’t finish until eleven o’clock.’

‘It’s not a problem.’

‘No?’ Temptation was tugging at her with relentless force.

‘No. I haven’t eaten yet. I’ll send a car to pick you up when you’re finished.’

‘Can’t we just play here?’ Kathy gave way but only on terms that she felt would be comfortable for her. She didn’t want to risk being seen with him. Nor did she want to climb into some strange car to be taken heaven knew where and possibly left to find her own way home again in the early hours of the morning.

His surprise was patent. ‘If that’s what you want.’

‘It is.’

Kathy watched his long fluid stride carry him out of her sight. She was in a daze, not quite able to accept that he had talked her round with very little effort. It was only a game of chess, she told herself in sudden exasperation. He was still set on winning. If he kissed her again, she would…well, she would just make sure that they didn’t get that close. It would be pointless, him with his business empire and her with her history. And she didn’t want to be kicked in the teeth again, did she? There was no point literally queuing up to get hurt. But nor was there any harm in pitting her wits against his.

Five minutes before eleven, Kathy freshened up in the cloakroom. She folded up her overall and dug it into her bag. Her turquoise cotton T-shirt clung to her minimal curves. She turned sideways, breathed in deep and arched her spine. Her bosom remained disappointingly slight from every angle. Meeting her own eyes in the mirror, she flushed in embarrassment and concentrated on brushing her hair instead.

Kathy was twenty-three years old but, just then, she felt more like a nervous teenager. That lowering feeling of ignorance and insecurity annoyed her. The years between nineteen and twenty-two, when she might have acquired a little more experience, had been stolen from her. As soon as that bitter thought occurred to her, she buried it again, for she tried never to look back in that spirit; it did her no good to dwell on what could not be changed. She had spent three years in prison for a crime she had not committed and still bore the scars, mentally and physically. But few had been willing to believe in her innocence and indeed had often judged her more harshly for daring to make such a claim. Get over it, she told herself firmly; leave it in the past, move on.

When she walked into his office, her lissom figure and endless long coltish legs merely enhanced by a T-shirt and jeans, Sergio was startled by her impact. The exotic slant of her cheekbones was more obvious with her glorious hair tumbling in loose waves round her narrow shoulders—hair the colour of tangerine marmalade in sunlight, glinting with amber and ochre shades that acted as a superb showcase for her white skin and apple-green eyes.

‘Have you ever been a model?’ he asked while he poured her another drink.

‘No. I don’t fancy walking half naked down a catwalk. I like food too much, as well. Could you spare a packet of crisps?’ Her tummy grumbling with hunger, Kathy had noticed the snacks in the snazzy drinks cabinet that stood open.

‘Help yourself. You seem more relaxed than you were earlier,’ Sergio remarked.

‘I’m on my own free time.’ Kathy curled up on the sofa and munched crisps while she played. The salty snack made her thirsty and she had to keep on sipping her drink. She only allowed herself to study him closely several moves into the game when he seemed unaware of her attention.

But no matter how much she looked at him, Sergio Torrente still took her breath away. He was drop-dead beautiful. Hair and lashes with the sheen of black silk, mesmeric dark eyes, a strong sensual mouth. He had shaved since she had last seen him—the faint bluish shadow of stubble had vanished. She wondered if that meant he planned to kiss her again. Heat pooled in her tummy and warmed more intimate places with a physical awareness that took her aback. She reminded herself that she had come to play chess, not to flirt.

Sergio glanced up. ‘Your move.’

Her lashes dropping in a protective screen over her eyes, she studied the board.

Sergio watched her demonstrate a skill, speed and assurance that made it clear that she was well able to hold her own. ‘Who taught you to play?’

‘My father.’

‘So did mine.’ His lean strong face shadowed. Silence lay before he matched her on the board and then, noticing her empty glass, he rose to refill it.

Her light green eyes rested on him throughout the exercise. Everything about him fascinated her: the classy cut of his hair, the designer élan of his suit, the discreet gleam of gold at his wrist and cuff, the fluid way he moved his lean brown hands when he spoke. He was very elegant and very controlled.

‘If you keep on looking at me like that, we’ll never finish the game, bella mia.’

Kathy reddened and took the glass he extended with a hand that wasn’t quite steady. He had read her so easily it embarrassed her. It also reminded her of how little she knew about him. As she thought of what she should have asked at the outset she tensed. ‘Are you married?’

Surprise made Sergio quirk an ebony brow. ‘Why are you asking?’

‘Is that a yes or a no?’

‘I’m single.’

Although her head was swimming a little, Kathy sidestepped the trap he had set for her on the board and shot him a victorious smile.

‘You’re good,’ Sergio conceded, amused by the suspicion that she too might have set out to play a very fast game. ‘We have a tie. Tact or fact?’

‘Fact.’

Her cheeky grin of challenge brought out the caveman in him.

He leant down, closed a hand into her tumbling copper-streaked tresses to raise her face to his and drove her delectable pink lips hungrily apart, making love to her mouth with devastating expertise.

That sudden taste of him took Kathy by storm. Desire exploded through her slender length like a depth charge that ignited on impact. Shards of sensation rippled through her. He kissed with an eroticism that was spellbinding. As he pulled her up against him her arms went round him to steady herself because she was dizzy. The alcohol? She shut down that suspicion, suddenly determined not to succumb to her need to play safe again. She was breathless with excitement, her heart pounding like mad. For the first time that she could remember she felt young and fearless and alive.