His Forbidden Conquest

‘Close your eyes, Princess,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m asking you to.’ He gave her a lazy smile. ‘This is going to be fun. I promise. Trust me.’

Did she trust him? Well—yes. Otherwise that encounter in his office just now wouldn’t have happened. She knew he wasn’t going to gossip about her or make her feel bad. When she was with him, she didn’t have to worry about anything.

She closed her eyes; a moment later, she could feel something brushing against her lower lip.

‘Keep your eyes closed,’ he whispered. ‘Open your mouth.’

She couldn’t help doing what he asked.

‘Now bite.’

Her mouth was flooded with the taste of gianduja, the rich mixture of ground hazelnuts and cocoa butter that she’d loved since childhood.

‘Good?’ he asked, his voice husky.

‘Very.’

‘Better than sex, you said.’

She opened her eyes and looked at him.

‘I think I’m going to enjoy making you take that back.’ This time, his smile was positively wolfish.

It took him less than ten minutes to have her babbling that yes—oh, God, yes—sex with him was better than chocolate. And then he made her admit it all over again.

‘Good. Just so we’re clear on that,’ he said, when her third climax of the evening had died away.

He disappeared, then returned with two mugs of coffee. ‘Right. Time to tackle the SWOT analysis.’

‘Uh.’ She swallowed hard. ‘How the hell do you expect me to concentrate on business, when you just wiped every single thought out of my head?’

‘That’s what the coffee’s for, Princess.’

She blew out a breath. ‘You amaze me.’

He kissed her swiftly. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment. Even though I think it was a backhanded one. Now, focus. I want to see those notes.’

As before, Dante took Carenza home on the bike and refused to come in for coffee, saying that he had things to sort out.

But, the next day, she was gratified to discover an email from him in her inbox.

How about a mentoring session on Wednesdays as well?

He didn’t mean just mentoring, she knew that. Not after what had happened between them last night. And the fact that he wanted to see her, too … Dante had made his position clear enough, the previous night. I still can’t offer you a relationship. But Carenza had a feeling that he was definitely protesting too much. His head might be able to come up with a dozen or more reasons why he shouldn’t have a relationship with her, but his body told her another story. And maybe she could teach him that you didn’t always have to listen to your head. That there was nothing wrong with letting yourself get close to someone—that it was OK to be attracted to someone and to act on that attraction. And it was OK to lose control. Twice, now, she’d stripped for him while he’d been fully clothed and in full control throughout. It was time she evened up the balance.

Maybe, she thought, she could mentor him. Teach him to let go and have some fun.

Maybe.

CHAPTER SEVEN

BY WEDNESDAY, Carenza wasn’t any further forward with the sales figures. ‘I can’t get them to work,’ she told Dante over a pizza that evening. ‘Though I’m not stupid.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Of course you’re not.’

‘I really can’t understand why they’re down. All I can tell you is that they’re slowing, year on year. Signor Mancuso says it’s because we’re in a recession.’

‘Right. And the definition of profit is?’

‘Sales minus costs.’

‘Exactly. So if you can’t increase your sales to increase your profits, then you need to cut your costs,’ he said.

‘Are you suggesting I should get rid of some of the staff?’ She sucked in a breath. ‘I can’t do that, Dante. How are they going to pay their bills if they don’t have their job any more?’

‘Staff aren’t your only costs,’ he pointed out. ‘And remember that your staff are assets, too. You need to look at your variable costs.’

‘The ones that change with the volume of sales,’ she said.

He smiled. ‘You’ve been paying attention. Good. So what can you tell me about your raw materials?’

‘We’ve been making ice cream in Naples for more than a hundred years—and we’ve always used organic produce.

Only the best. We’ve used the same suppliers for years and years and years,’ Carenza said. ‘Nonno says if you don’t use the best, you can’t produce the best.’

‘Years and years and years, hmm? That sounds like a rut to me. You always need to audit your suppliers every so often and check that they’re still giving you the best value for money,’ Dante said. ‘Just because they’ve been the best in the past, it doesn’t mean they’re the best now. New people come along with new ideas and new technologies, and things change.’

‘So I sack my suppliers, even though we go way back?’ She bit her lip. ‘That feels a bit—well, ruthless.’

‘I’m not saying you have to replace them. I’m saying you need to audit them and find out if they can do you a better deal than they’re offering now. It’s standard business practice. The way your figures are going,’ he said softly, ‘you’ll be out of business within a year. And that means you’ll have to let all your staff go.’

‘But surely it’s just the recession, and everything will be OK once the economy’s back to normal?’

‘You’re in the same market as I am. Not a competitor, because you’re in a different segment,’ he reminded her, ‘but my restaurants aren’t facing the same problems you are, so it’s not just the recession. Look at your costs, Princess. Are there other organic suppliers that can give you better deals?’

‘So I just ring them up and say, hi, I’m Carenza Tonielli, give me a quote?’

‘Yup.’ He looked at her. ‘Tell me who you use now. I’ll ask them for a quote—and then you can compare that to what they offer you. That and the competitor quotes will help you drive their price down to a more reasonable level, if you want to keep using them.’

‘But they have to make money, too.’

‘Agreed—but, right now, my guess is they’re making a little too much out of you. Time to get some balance back.’

‘Thank you, Dante. I really do appreciate your help.’

He shrugged. ‘Prego, Princess.’

She was sure he called her that purely to annoy her. Though in a strange kind of way it was becoming an endearment. There wasn’t an edge to his voice any more when he called her ‘Princess’. There was something else. Something she couldn’t quite define, but something she hoped might just grow.

For pudding, she’d organised something special.

‘Is this another of your experiments?’ he asked as she delved in the freezer.

She laughed. ‘Yes. But you’ll like this one. I promise it’s not parmesan. Though I bet that parmesan ice cream would do well in a trendy London restaurant.’

‘Where they care more about the presentation than the taste?’ He grimaced. ‘This is Naples, Princess. That means substance over style.’

She fished a spoon out of the drawer, and unclipped the lid from the plastic tub.

‘Chocolate,’ he said as soon as he saw the ice cream.

‘Better-than-sex chocolate,’ she corrected, feeding him a spoonful.

‘Nope. It’s good, but it’s not that good.’ He gave her a speculative look. ‘Or maybe we should take this to bed, so I can compare them side by side …’

‘You are not getting gianduja ice cream all over my sheets,’ she said. ‘I’ll never get the marks out.’

He laughed. ‘You’re such a princess. Do you even do your own laundry?’

Her answer was to drop a spoonful of ice cream down the neck of his shirt.

‘Oh, now that was a severely bad move, Princess.’

It took him thirty seconds to get them both naked on her kitchen floor.

Ten more to smear her with ice cream.

And rather a lot longer to lick it off. By the time he’d finished, Carenza was sated and smiling.

‘I think we’ve established that the ice cream—good as it is—is still second best. You can’t bill it as “better than sex” ice cream on your menu,’ he teased.

‘Uh. Let me get some brain cells back before I have to answer you,’ she groaned. ‘And I’m still sticky.’

‘You started it,’ he pointed out.

And she’d enjoyed every second of it. She loved it when Dante stopped being serious and became her teasing, exuberant lover. And she wanted more of this. Much more. ‘I need a shower.’ She licked a smear of ice cream from his abdomen. ‘So do you.’

‘Is that an offer?’

‘Might be.’ She gave him her sexiest pout. ‘Interested?’

His answer was to pick her up and carry her to the shower. She’d run out of hot water by the time they’d finished, but she didn’t care. The smile on her face felt a mile wide.

Wrapped in towels to keep off the chill, they lounged on her bed. And there was a softness in Dante’s eyes that tempted Carenza to try to get him to open up to her. To start her private reverse mentoring.

‘So what does a restaurateur do for fun,’ she asked, ‘given that he doesn’t own a games console or TV?’

He grimaced. ‘Most TV is pretty mindless—and I hate that reality stuff. Who wants to watch that tedious rubbish?’

‘Not all TV’s like that,’ she said. ‘There are documentaries. Comedies.’ She paused. ‘Do you like films?

He shrugged. ‘My business takes up most of my time.’

‘All work and no play,’ she said, batting her eyelashes at him.

‘Are you calling me dull, Princess?’

‘No, you’re not dull.’ He had far too much energy to be dull. ‘But maybe,’ she said carefully, ‘you’re missing out on things.’

‘So what do you do for fun?’ he asked.

Was he being polite, or was he really interested? She wasn’t sure. ‘I haven’t really had a chance to go out much since I’ve been back in Naples. But in London I used go to the cinema a lot,’ she said. ‘And I’d have a glass of wine afterwards with my friends so we could talk about the film.’

‘Serious arty discussions, hmm?’ His expression told her that he thought it was more likely that she was discussing the hunkiness of the male leads with her girly friends.

She folded her arms. ‘If you call me an airhead again, I’ll … I’ll …’

‘Yes?’ He looked interested.

She subsided. ‘Sometimes, Dante, you’re so difficult.’

‘And you’re not?’ he asked dryly.

‘Not as difficult as you are, no.’

‘So you like talking about films.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Next you’re going to tell me you’re in a book group.’

‘No, I’m not. But I do like reading.’ She paused. ‘You?’

‘I read the business news. Usually online.’

She was still no closer to finding out how he let off steam. ‘OK, I give up. What do you do for fun?’

‘Sometimes I go out on the bike.’

‘And that’s it?’

He leaned closer. ‘And sometimes I have sex with a gorgeous blonde. Fairly incredible sex, actually.’

She could feel her face going beetroot, and he spread his hands and laughed. ‘Hey. Don’t complain. You asked.’

‘So I’m your main leisure activity?’

‘At the moment, I guess so.’

She frowned. ‘You don’t ever go dancing?’

‘Do I look like a man who dances?’

He looked like the kind of man who’d dance an incredibly sexy tango, one that would leave her wet and panting for him. Not that she was going to tell him that. ‘Let’s give it a try. Will you go out with me on Saturday night?’

‘Dancing? Sorry, Princess, not my scene.’

‘How do you know? You’ve never been dancing with me. It’ll be fun.’ She tipped her head to one side and gave him her most winsome smile. ‘Come with me.’

‘I’d rather not.’ He pulled a face. ‘I hate dancing.’

She sighed. ‘You’re the one who says we don’t understand each other. If you come with me, see what I do for fun, then maybe you’ll understand a bit better what makes me tick.’

‘I understand you already.’

‘No, you don’t. You just think you do. The same as I know that whenever I think I’ve worked you out, I’m going to find out there’s yet another layer.’

‘Now you’re calling me an onion?’

‘No. Just complex.’ She kissed him lightly. ‘Come with me, Dante. We’ll have a good time. If you really hate it, we don’t have to stay.’ She gave him her sexiest pout. ‘Don’t you want to get hot and sweaty with me?’

‘I can think of better ways,’ he said.

‘Trust me, it’ll be a lot more fun than you think.’ She licked her lower lip. ‘I guarantee you’ll like my dress. And my shoes.’ She could see in his face that he was looking for excuses. ‘Saturday night is mentor night,’ she reminded him. ‘Only, this time, I’ll be mentoring you.’

He frowned. ‘How do you mean?’

‘I’m mentoring you in having fun. In understanding me. In what makes me tick.’

Dante thought about it. He didn’t need to know what made her tick. That was nothing to do with the mentoring arrangement—or the fact they still couldn’t be in the same room as each other for long without needing to rip each other’s clothes off. But he still didn’t want any emotional involvement. Still couldn’t handle it.

‘Please, Dante. I’ve been working really hard. I’d like an evening off.’ She paused. ‘And you work harder than I do.’

He shrugged at the implication. ‘I don’t need time off.’ ‘Just an hour. That’s all,’ she said. ‘Please?’ It was hard to resist the appeal in those blue, blue eyes. He sighed. ‘This is against my better judgement,’ he said, ‘but OK. Not this Saturday—next week.’

It was a compromise. And she’d take it. ‘Thank you.’ She slid her arms round him and held him close. ‘I promise you won’t regret it.’

‘So how did you get on with the figures?’ Dante asked on the Saturday night.

‘I’m still waiting for some of the quotes. But I did look at the variable costs.’ She paused. ‘And something’s wrong there.’

‘Come and sit down, and we’ll take a look at it.’ He drew another chair round to his side of the desk.

‘If I’m selling less ice cream, that means I don’t have to make so much of it in the first place, so I should be using fewer ingredients—right?’

‘That should be how it works, yes.’

‘But I’m not. If anything, according to the invoices, I’m using more.’

He frowned. ‘Are you sure?’

She nodded. ‘And I can’t see a reason for it. I don’t want to worry Nonno in case it sets off his angina. I guess I should ask Emilio Mancuso, seeing as he’s been manager for the last five years.’ She sighed. ‘The last time I asked him something, he told me not to worry my pretty little head about it.’

‘What an idiot.’ Dante gave her a wry smile. ‘Did you accidentally-on-purpose stand on his foot—in your sharpest heels?’

‘I wanted to,’ she admitted, ‘but I resisted the impulse. I can see why he doesn’t like me. He’s been running everything for five years, then I waltz in from London and take over, when I know next to nothing about the business. It’s kind of a slap in the face to him, and I need to take his feelings into consideration when I deal with him.’

‘Understanding your staff always helps.’ Dante raised an eyebrow. ‘But he doesn’t know you at all, does he?’

She frowned. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘Because if he did, he’d realise you’re here to stay. So he should be working with you and making himself your right-hand man, instead of putting obstacles in your way. Mentoring you to make sure all the work he’s put in isn’t all undone.’

She grimaced. ‘I already told you, I couldn’t ask him to be my mentor.’

‘Because you don’t trust him?’

‘I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something about him. Whether it’s the fact he resents me for swanning in, or I resent him for being there for my grandparents when I should’ve been there … I don’t know. And I feel so bad saying that.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t know what to do, Dante. And I hate that.’

‘Bide your time,’ he said. ‘Don’t rush into anything. Gather all your facts, first, look at them, and then you can make an informed decision. But don’t rush it.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

ON TUESDAY morning, Carenza was working through a set of figures when an unexpected visitor arrived.

‘Nonno!’ She threw her arms round her grandfather. ‘Come and sit down.’

It felt slightly odd to be the one behind the desk she’d visited her grandfather sitting at during her childhood, but he didn’t seem to mind.

‘I see you’ve made changes to the artwork in the office,’ Gino said with a smile.

‘It’s one of the three pictures I brought back from Amy’s. The other two are upstairs in my flat.’

‘It’s …’ He was clearly searching for a diplomatic word. ‘Bright.’

Dante had been much less tactful in his reaction. Especially when she’d suggested using prints of the artist’s work in the shops and the ice cream caffè.

‘Sorry, Nonno. It’s your office. I shouldn’t be making changes.’ She bit her lip.

‘Tesoro, it’s your office now. You arrange it however you like.’ Though there was a slight trace of worry in his voice when he asked, ‘Is that what you had in mind when you said you were changing the pictures on the walls in the shops?’

Not after Dante’s comments, it wasn’t. ‘No. But we’ve been here for over a hundred years. It’s our USP, really, that I’m the fifth generation of Toniellis to run the shops. So I thought it might be nice for our customers to see photographs of how things used to be when the business first started.’

Gino looked pleased. ‘That’s a good idea.’

‘So I thought maybe you, Nonna and I could look through all the old photos, some time soon, and pick the ones we like best. Starting with your great-grandfather.’ She paused. ‘And including Papa.’

‘Including Pietro.’ There was a suspicious sheen in his eyes. She knew exactly how he felt. Every time she thought of her parents, it made her catch her breath and her eyes feel moist, too. Ridiculous, after all this time. She’d spent much more of her life without them than with them. Three-quarters of it, if you were counting. But she still missed them.

‘Can I get you some coffee, Nonno?’

‘That would be lovely, piccola.’

She made coffee for both of them, and retrieved a tin of cannoli wafers filled with chocolate-hazelnut spread from the bottom drawer of her desk. ‘My secret vice. Help yourself.’

‘Thank you. So how are you getting on, tesoro?’ Gino asked.

‘Fine. I’m enjoying it.’

‘Emilio tells me you’ve been asking him lots of questions.’

There was a slight edge to her grandfather’s tone—something she’d never known before—and it put her on full alert. Was Mancuso trying to make trouble between them? ‘Well, I guess I have—I’ve been trying to get to know the business properly. If I’ve been a nuisance, then I’m sorry. I’ll try not to bother him so much in future.’

‘It’s not that.’ Gino paused. ‘He feels you don’t trust him.’

Help. How did she answer that?

Obviously her expression did it for her, because her grandfather sighed. ‘Emilio’s a good man, Carenza. He’s looked after the business for the last five years, been my right-hand man for many years more than that. He doesn’t deserve to be treated like this.’

Carenza wasn’t so sure, but she had no proof to back up her feelings. And a hunch wasn’t enough.

Dante’s voice echoed in her head. Gather all your facts, first.

As if her grandfather could read her mind, he said, ‘I hear you’ve been seeing Dante Romano.’

‘He’s my business mentor,’ she explained. Her grandfather didn’t need to know the rest of it.

‘You do know he wanted to buy the business?’

‘Yes, which makes him the best person I could ask.’ She gave an expressive shrug. ‘You know what they say. Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer.’ Not that Dante was her enemy. Even when they didn’t see eye to eye.

Gino raised an eyebrow. ‘Be careful, tesoro.’

‘You’re warning me off him?’

‘Not in business. Dante’s as straight as they come. But don’t lose your heart to him. As soon as he sees wedding bells in a girlfriend’s eyes, he leaves her.’

‘I’m not his girlfriend.’ And she certainly wasn’t telling her grandfather about that side of her relationship with Dante. That was just between her and Dante.

‘Just be careful. And don’t break his heart, either.’

She looked at him, hurt. ‘How do you mean?’

‘You’re not one to settle.’

Did he know about what had happened in London, last year? she wondered. If Dante knew, anyone else could find out, too, and tell her grandfather. Not Dante—she knew he’d never undermine her like that. But if Mancuso had any idea … Playing for time, she said, ‘I don’t understand, Nonno.’

‘It’d be easy for a man to lose his heart to you, tesoro. You’re sweet and you’re beautiful,’ he said. ‘But you’re twenty-eight years old and you still haven’t found the man you want to settle down with. And Dante Romano had a rough time, as a kid.’

That didn’t surprise her. It would explain why he was so self-contained, why he didn’t let people close. And yet she knew he was close to his mother and his sister. ‘What do you mean by “a rough time”, Nonno?’

Gino shook his head. ‘It’s not for me to talk about.’

And she was pretty sure that Dante wouldn’t tell her. ‘He said you gave him a chance, when he was younger,’ she said.

‘I gave him a job.’ Gino flapped his hand dismissively.

‘I get the impression it was more than that.’

‘And a little advice when he bought the first restaurant.’

‘Exactly. He feels he owes you. That’s why he’s mentoring me.’

‘Hmm. Well, just be careful,’ Gino said.

Carenza was still seething about the way Emilio Mancuso had gone to her grandfather behind her back when she called in at Dante’s office for her mentoring session on Wednesday evening.

He took one look at her. ‘I’m feeding you first. You need carbs.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘No, you’re not. Trust me to order for you?’

‘Anything except clams.’ She pulled a face.

‘That’s a shame, because Mario’s been experimenting with pasta vongole—it has a chilli kick and it’s seriously good.’

‘Really not clams, please,’ she repeated.

Rosemary bread and olives helped settle her temper; the pasta Alfredo, followed by a rich beef stew with tiny new potatoes and steamed mangetout, helped even more.

And then Dante gave her ice cream.

She tasted it gingerly. ‘Not as good as mine,’ she said, though she finished the bowl—the sugar rush was just what she needed to get rid of the last bit of her bad mood. ‘I think you need to change your supplier.’

‘Do you have anyone in mind?’

He was teasing her, and she knew it. She smiled. ‘I might do.’

‘Give me a quote, and we’ll talk about it.’ His smile faded. ‘Talking of quotations—I heard back from your supplier.’

‘And? ‘

Without comment, Dante cleared away the plates, then placed the quotation in front of her.

She stared at it. ‘But—that’s an awful lot less than they’re charging me.’

‘I thought it might be,’ he said.

‘Is this why my business is going downhill? This is what you thought when you said it was more than just the recession?’

‘It’s one of the reasons,’ he said. ‘But what’s really worrying me is what you told me on Saturday—that your input is going up when your output is going down. It’s not as if your business is something like a bakery, where you have to throw out unsold bread and pastries because they’re stale, or sandwich shops where you have to get rid of the fillings because they’re perishable and food hygiene rules demand it. By definition, gelati’s frozen. It doesn’t go off from one day to the next. Unless you have a freezer break-down—when you’d be throwing out everything and your losses would be insured in any case—there’s no reason why you should throw the leftover gelati away each day. And I’m pretty sure you don’t.’