He swept in, dressed as he had been in the club. Though his hair looked a little mussed, like he’d raked his fingers through it not all that long ago.
Or, more likely, someone else had.
He stopped on a half-stride, something in his expression moving toward surprise before he managed to hide it away. “You need better security,” he said by way of greeting.
“You need to take no for an answer.” She clutched the shawl a little tighter at her throat, pretending as though she was dressed in her boardroom best. “What on earth are you doing here at this time of night?”
His gaze perused her then. Took in the thick socks, the pajamas, the glasses, the shawl. His mouth curved ever so slightly in pure amusement, but only for a moment.
He scowled. “Explain to me how you have this information.”
“What information?”
“The numbers about my company. The projections. You should not have this information, and I want to know what dastardly things you’ve done to obtain it.”
She was shocked someone had already distilled the information for him. She figured he’d wait forty-eight hours out of spite at the very least. “Surely you did not wake up some poor employee to explain it to you when it could have waited until morning.”
“No one should have this information,” he said, ignoring her.
She supposed she should have seen this accusation coming. Noteveryonewas as thorough and good with numbers as she was. Certainly, Luciano wasn’t. But she’d assumed his man of business would explainthisto him—how easy it was to know your job if you tried.
“It was easy enough to use what I know of the industry, what public information there is, and then extrapolate accordingly.” She shrugged. “I am brilliant, Luciano. Trust me, my father would not have allowed me near his company if I was not. If my choices, my decisions, my outcomes weren’t perfect. He had rather outmoded ideas about women in the workplace.”
“Perhaps we should have switched fathers, then. Mine often lamented that if I was a woman, at least I’d be good forsomething.”
For a moment, the silence around them was awkward instead of hostile. This sort of admission that they might have been better off in each other’s shoes.
Then his scowl intensified, and he stepped forward. “There is no way you simplysurmisedthis information.”
She supposed his proximity was meant to be intimidating, so she refused to be intimidated. Even as her heart rattled around her chest in an unfamiliar rhythm. Without her heels, she had to look up at him, and she did so now, letting none of her nerves show. She clutched her shawl tight and refused to let herself sound winded by the strange sensations twisting through her. “There is, because I did.”
“You will tell me the truth.”
“Iamtelling you the truth.”
“Do you think I will go along with this ridiculous plan because of some pathetic lie? You will tell me how you got this information, or I will destroy you.”
She rolled her eyes, lifted an arm. “Destroy away, Luciano.” Because she was already almost there.
* * *
Luciano realized he was not handling this well, but that only spurred him on.
She hadrolled her eyesat him. When he was actually being serious instead of his usual insouciance.
Something brushed up against his legs and he only just stopped himself from jumping back. It looked like a stuffed little ball of fur, but it moved, and then looked up, its cat eyes blinking at him.
“Che cazzo, is thatreal?”
The ball of fluff offered a pitifulmeow. Luciano stared down at it for a full minute until his mind could accept it was another cat to go along with the one perched in the window.
Whowasthis woman sitting in a room better suited to an octogenarian cat lady? He knew she was stuffy, stiff,annoying, but he’d still assumed she’d live in something sleek and modern and befitting the CEO of a generationally successful shipping company.
He had not expected her to wearglasses. To look somehow…innocent and vulnerable standing there in her pajamas, even as she scowled at him, ever the picture of control.
“I think it would be best if you leave, Mr. Ascione,” she said primly, no doubt using themisterto remind him of his father. “Your assistant may call mine and set up a meeting whenever you would like to discuss my proposal, at an appropriate time and place, but I will not tolerate accusations against me in my own home, at this hour. Call Mr. Emidio and have him explain to you just how I would have gotten my informationwithoutwhatever nonsense corporate espionage you are accusing me of.”
“I do not need to call Mr. Emidio,” he ground out.
